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, 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. Long known as Bedloe's Island, it was renamed by an act of the United States Congress in 1956.