Eleven years ago, a woman who had immigrated from South America several years earlier went to Battery Park with her sister to see the Statue of Liberty. At her sister’s urging, she brought along a Statue of Liberty costume that she made for the previous Halloween, a papier-mâché mask and a canvas sheet she had sprayed green. At the park, her sister took a picture of her fully regaled, and almost immediately, strangers started crowding around.

Could she pose for a picture? How about another? Now another? Everyone wanted a photo taken with Miss Liberty, and a lot of them started pressing money on her to say thanks: a dollar here, a quarter there. After a few hours, Miss Liberty had so much cash that she felt less like a symbol of American freedom than a walking piggy bank. So she didn’t walk — she threw off her robe, stuffed it and her wad of cash in a bag, and ran all the way to the subway.

She had been working as an illustrator, but the work was irregular and solitary. So Miss Liberty started showing up with her costume at Battery Park during slow spells and collecting money from eager tourists, eventually getting a permit from the city.

Miss Liberty made new friends at work—for example, Silver Man, a Battery Park performer who covered himself in silver face makeup and silver garb and moved like a robot for the crowds. Silver Man’s doctor didn’t like what his job was doing for his skin, so Miss Liberty invited him to join her line of work near Castle Clinton, where tourists get tickets for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.