That photo is real. It shows the right arm of the Statue of Liberty as it stood in Madison Square between 1876 and 1882. The statue’s sculptor, Frédéric Bartholdi, created the arm and torch first so they could be used to raise funds and generate excitement for the project among the American public. That effort was only partially successful, and the pedestal on Bedloe’s Island wasn’t ready for some time. I imagine after a while people got used to the bizarre sight of that arm sticking up ver the park.
An interesting note about structure: Bartholdi was originally working with Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, but after the latter’s death, he began collaborating with Gustave Eiffel. Viollet-le-Duc was proposing a masonry pier for the main structure; Eiffel switched that to a wrought-iron braced frame. So the interior structure as we know it is partly the result of the delay causing the change in structural designer.
