Liberty Island

Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the northeastern United States. Its most notable feature is the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World), a large statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that was dedicated in 1886. The island also contains the Statue of Liberty Museum, which opened in 2019, and exhibits the statue's original torch, which was carried by Liberty from 1886 to 1984.

Long known as Bedloe's Island, it was renamed by an act of the United States Congress in 1956. Part of the State of New York, the island is an exclave of the New York City borough of Manhattan, surrounded by the waters of Jersey City, New Jersey. There were a number of disputes regarding the jurisdictional status of the island during the 20th century.

Liberty Island became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1937 through Presidential Proclamation 2250, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1966, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island, and Liberty Island.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the island has a land area of 14.717 acres (5.956 ha), and is the property of the federal government. Liberty Island is located in the Upper New York Bay within the waters of Jersey City, New Jersey. It is one of the islands that are part of the borough of Manhattan in New York. The historical developments which led to this construction made Liberty Island an exclave of one state, New York, in another, New Jersey. Liberty Island is 2,000 feet (610 m) east of Liberty State Park in Jersey City and is 1.6 miles (2.6 km) southwest of the Battery in Lower Manhattan.

An unusual clause in the 1664 colonial land grant that outlined New Jersey's borders reads: "westward of Long Island, and Manhitas Island and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river" rather than at the river's midpoint, as was common in other colonial charters.

In 1824 the City of New York attempted to assert a jurisdictional monopoly over the growing ferry service in New York Harbor in Gibbons v. Ogden. It was deemed by the court that interstate transport would be regulated by the federal government. This did not resolve the border issue. In 1830, New Jersey planned to bring suit, but the matter was resolved with a compact between the states ratified by Congress in 1834, which set the boundary line between them as the midpoint of the shared waterway. This would place Bedloe's (Liberty) Island and Ellis Island in New Jersey; however, the compact included an exception specifying that they remain the territory of New York. This was later confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1908 case which also expounded on the compact.

In 1986, a suit brought by New Jersey residents challenging New York state's jurisdiction over Liberty Island was dismissed. The same year, U.S. Representative Frank J. Guarini and Gerald McCann, then mayor of Jersey City, sued the government of New York City, contending that New Jersey should have dominion over Liberty Island because it is on the New Jersey side of the state line. Since the court chose not to hear the case, the existing legal status remained unchanged. Portions of the island that are above water are part of New York, while riparian rights to all of the submerged land surrounding the statue belong to New Jersey. The southwestern section, 4.17 acres (1.69 ha), of the island was created by land reclamation.

In 1998, the United States Supreme Court decided the state jurisdiction of the nearby Ellis Island in New Jersey v. New York. Being mostly constructed of artificial infill, New Jersey argued and the court agreed that the 1834 compact covered only the natural parts of the island, and not the portions added by infill. Thus it was agreed that the parts of the island made of filled land belonged to New Jersey while the original natural part belonged to New York. This proved impractical to administer and New Jersey and New York subsequently agreed to share jurisdiction of the entire island. This special situation only applies to Ellis Island and part of Shooters Island.