I remember this passage from a cheap pulp novel I read years ago that takes place in Paris, about the Statue being a tourism campaign. I always wondered if there was any truth to it. “And it was in the Continental—I seem to remember in 1880, but don’t hold me to that—that what many regard as the advertising coup of all time took place.” “I’ve always been interested in advertising,” Castillo said. “Tell me about that.” “Tourism was just beginning to blossom and become big business,” Delchamps said. “The British, the Italians, the Germans, and of course the French were in hot competition for the Yankee tourist dollar. There was hardly a building on Manhattan Island without a billboard urging the Yankees to come to England, Italy, Germany, or France. There were so many of them that not one of them really caught people’s attention. And the advertising was really expensive, which really bothered the French. “The matter was given a great deal of thought, and, in studying the problem the French realized that the ideal advertisement would be something that incorporated novelty. Edison had just given us the lightbulb, you will recall, so the new advertisement had to include one of those. Yankees, the French knew, also liked amply bosomed females, so the advertisement would have to have one of those, too. How about an amply breasted woman holding an electric light over her head?” Castillo laughed aloud. “You sonofabitch, you had me going. The Statue of Liberty.” Delchamps smiled and nodded. “And if we give it to the Yankees, the clever Frogs realized, call it a ‘gift of friendship’ or something, not only will the Yankees never take it down but—desperate as they are to have people like them—they’ll put it someplace where it can’t be missed. And if we give it to them, they’ll pay to maintain it. If we play our cards right, we can probably even get them to pay for part—maybe most—of it.”