Metro

Statue of Liberty to reopen, but shutdown cloud over marathon

WASHINGTON — State and federal officials cut a deal Friday to reopen the Statue of Liberty despite the ongoing standoff between President Obama and House Republicans that has closed national parks during the government shutdown.

Under terms of the deal, the state will pay the National Park Service about $61,600 daily to open Liberty Island to visitors beginning Saturday.

“We will not allow this international symbol of freedom to remain closed because of the dysfunction and gridlock of Washington,” Gov. Cuomo said.

The Park Service, which has had to furlough more than 20,000 employees, said the agreement allows for Liberty Island to be open Saturday through Oct. 17 for about $369,000.

The feds also made similar deals to reopen the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore.

Meanwhile, the shutdown is also threatening how the New York City Marathon will be run.

The 45,000 runners in the Nov. 3 race are supposed to gather at Fort Wadsworth, near the marathon starting line on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano Bridge.

As a federal facility run by the Park Service, Fort Wadsworth is part of the shutdown. That has race organizers scrambling for alternate space where the marathoners can assemble.

“Regardless of the federal government’s status on race day, the marathon will proceed and the starting location will not change,” said a spokesman for the New York Road Runners Club, which oversees the race.

“NYRR is working closely with our city, state and federal partners to establish contingency plans for our Fort Wadsworth staging area that will ensure a that continued shutdown would not significantly impact the race.”

One official told The Post that the city might ask the feds for a waiver to use Fort Wadsworth if the shutdown is still in effect.

“My sense is it’s all going to be OK,” the official said.

New York state has 33 sites under the jurisdiction of the Park Service.

Governors in several other states have asked for authority to reopen parks within their borders, citing economic losses from closures. The Park Service said Thursday it would allow parks to reopen as long as states picked up the cost.

Bradford Hill, president of the company that operates the gift shop and food service at both Liberty and Ellis islands, said his firm had laid off 110 employees because of the shutdown.

Statue Cruises, which runs boats from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, gets about 7,000 to 10,000 passengers on an average day, but one employee said that
since the shutdown, attendance had dipped to about 3,000 for one-hour tours of New York Harbor.

“When we see America in the movies, it was always the Statue of Liberty,” said Manish Tripathi, 28, of Delhi, India, who took one of the abbreviated cruises. “Without the statue, it doesn’t feel totally like America.”