LIBERTY ISLAND, NEW YORK – Thousands of tourists, who were visiting Liberty Island this morning, discovered the Statue of Liberty wrapped over night in an enormous dark-black drapery.
City Hall said the piece, nicknamed “The Harbor Veil,” was approved shortly after Zohran Mamdani was elected as the city’s first muslim mayor. Officials insisted the design wasn’t meant to mimic any particular garment, though critics immediately stated that it reminds a burka the size of a small moon.
The mayor’s office countered that New Yorkers have survived far stranger stunts from City Hall and should regard the installation as “civic surrealism in fabric form.”
Tourists on the first ferry squinted upward at Liberty’s newly shrouded silhouette, which now resembled a lighthouse deciding to take a sabbatical.
The drapery, made of ultra-light weatherproof material, billowed in the breeze like an indecisive cloud. Parks workers reassured visitors that the statue beneath was perfectly fine, merely enjoying what one official called “an interlude of dramatic wardrobe experimentation.”
Several passengers applauded when the wind briefly sculpted the fabric into the vague outline of a triumphant fist.
Zohran Mamdani held a press conference on Liberty Island, standing beside the installation’s designer, who described the work as a meditation on “visibility, invisibility, and the plain fact that New Yorkers never agree on anything.”
Mamdani emphasized that the project was neither religious nor ideological, instead calling it “a playful provocation about public symbols and the stories we drape over them.”
His remarks were interrupted when a rogue gust wrapped a corner of the fabric around a microphone, prompting laughter and an impromptu tug-of-war with a park ranger.
Reactions across the city ranged from delighted curiosity to classic New York exasperation.
One resident argued that if the statue gets a new outfit, the subway should at least get reliable ventilation. Another wondered whether the drapery would be added to the city’s laundry budget.
*Image: AI-generated