Crown of Statue of Liberty opens for Fourth of July

The Big Apple also boasted the nation’s biggest fireworks display.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The first visitors allowed into the Statue of Liberty’s crown in nearly eight years made the arduous climb Saturday on an Independence Day journey laden with symbolism of freedom, national pride — and for one couple, romance.

Aaron Weisinger, 26, got down on one knee on the crown’s small floor, pulled out a diamond ring and proposed to his girlfriend, Erica Breder. Stunned, Breder squeezed her eyes shut as tears rolled down her cheeks, and whispered an immediate yes.

“To propose in the crown was perfect,” 25-year-old Breder said later.

Cheering the Walnut Creek, Calif., couple, fellow visitors also felt the gravity of the occasion.

“I feel the Statue of Liberty represents global unity, a sign that our world must unify,” said Barbara McLean, 57, of Atlanta. After ascending the total of 354 steps to the statue’s crown, she sang “America the Beautiful” — her deep voice resonating off the low, rounded ceiling of the crown’s interior — before fellow visitors broke into a hefty applause.

Later in New York, fireworks lit the night sky with a kaleidoscope of colors shooting 1,000 feet into the air.

It was the nation’s biggest fireworks display, with more than 22 tons of pyrotechnics exploding Saturday over a mile-and-a-half of the Hudson River, a new vantage point for New York’s festivities. Millions of spectators watched from both sides of the river.

Among them were Jamalat Bayoumy and his wife, Mosad Mohamad — food vendors who work near the river. They lost an estimated $1,000 in business when police asked them to shut down because of swelling crowds.

“This is very nice,” Bayoumy said, “but we’re losing money in America.”

But, his wife added, “America is free. We have green cards and we dream to become Americans.”

While the recession forced many communities to scale down, or even cancel, their fireworks, “we’re a country of survivors and fighters, and we try to make things work,” said Gary Souza, whose family-owned, California-based company is staging the New York display as well as hundreds of others across the country — including the nation’s capital.

In Washington, the daylong celebrations started with a parade along Constitution Avenue and ended with fireworks over the Washington Monument as a band played a medley of patriotic music.

President Obama, speaking to military families at the White House for Independence Day festivities, told the service members they were “the latest, strongest link in that unbroken chain that stretches back to the Continental Army.”

Former President George W. Bush spoke amid thunderous applause in rural Woodward, Okla., calling the U.S. the “greatest nation on the face of the earth.” He thanked members of the military for their service, and thanked spectators for giving “a retired guy something to do.”

In Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, the city held a parade through the Old City neighborhood for the first time in 18 years. Descendants of the Declaration’s signers gathered at the Liberty Bell, and fireworks were planned over the Museum of Art.

On Saturday morning in Boston, with its rich Revolutionary War history, the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship performed its annual turnaround in the harbor. The USS Constitution — “Old Ironsides” — marked the day by firing a 21-gun salute, the highest maritime honor, followed by 19 volleys.

On Saturday evening, Bostonians filled the banks of the Charles River for a free Boston Pops concert featuring Neil Diamond.