Monuments: The Lady Has a Problem

Every hundred years, some wag remarked as the Statue of Liberty was undergoing its two-year, $66.3 million restoration, a lady needs a face-lifting. Well, maybe it was too much to expect the refurbished copper statue to shine like a newly minted penny at its rededication on July 4. Even so, why have parts of the statue's left cheek, left neck and torch arm developed what the New York Daily News last week delicately dubbed a skin problem? The dark spots, it turns out, are acid stains, caused by pollutants that began eating away at the statue's protective patina in the 1960s and cannot be removed without endangering the delicate copper sheath. But then again, what 100-year-old lady does not have an age spot here and there?