Approximately 300 people listened to the West Seattle Big Band's sweet mix of patriotic songs and jazz as they waited on the Alki Promenade for the arrival of dignitaries on a lovely, late-summer evening for the unveiling of a replica of a replica.

The new bronze version of Alki's miniature Statue of Liberty has been installed atop the pedestal where the original replica stood, southwest of the Alki Bathhouse. It was unveiled by Mayor Greg Nickels along with his wife Sharon Nickels and City Councilman Tom Rasmussen, an Alki resident.

Offshore from the ceremony, the fireboat Leschi circled sending high arcing, celebratory cascades into the sky from its four water cannons.

Closer to shore and strung with colorful international code flags was the gaff-rigged ketch Yankee Clipper, the Sea Scout training vessel based in West Seattle.

A Seattle Police color guard brought the ceremony to quiet attention. Seattle police officers and firefighters were in attendance standing at the fringes of the gathering.

There was sustained applause from the crowd when the new bronze statue was unveiled with its bluish-green patina except for the dark-gold torch flames. The statue was given a chemical scrubbing with a solution of cupric nitrate, explained Kevin Keating of The Bronze Works, a foundry in Tacoma where the new statue was poured. Section by section, the statue was heated with a torch and sprayed with the solution. Then the bronze was burnished to give it a somewhat weathered appearance, he said.

"They wanted the antique look," Keating said. "Over a long time, it would look that green color. We just accelerated the process."

During remarks at the unveiling ceremony, Mayor Nickels said the statue represents courage as well as Sept. 11, 2001, and how Alki's little Lady Liberty drew hundreds of people from throughout Seattle and the Puget Sound region for days after the attacks.

"A lot of us thought it (the statue) was here when the Denny party landed," Nickels quipped.

The original statue was made from a plaster mold wrapped in copper sheeting. It was a gift from the Boy Scouts of America in 1952 as were about 200 identical statues from Scout troops to communities across the nation. Alki's original Statue of Liberty will be displayed at the Log House Museum.

Molds of the 1952 statue were made but stored improperly and became misshapen and unuseable. Workers had to create new molds for the new statue.

Nickels reminded the crowd Tom Ansart, owner of Alki's gone-but-not-forgotten Liberty Deli and live theater venue, was the first fund-raiser for the statue. He congratulated Northwest Programs for the Arts for its expansion of fund-raising and thanked Libby and Paul Carr for continuing the money-raising effort.

The mayor drew a cheer from the crowd when he announced he is including $50,000 in the 2008 city budget for the Statue of Liberty project. He will submit the entire budget to the City Council this fall.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at (206) 932-0300 or timstc@robinsonnews.com