"It is something to have witnessed the manipulation of a mass weighing nearly two hundred and twenty tons changing its position majestically, yet as easily and steadily as if it were without weight. It was to me an inexpressible relief to feel that my work was complete, and that no accident or incident had happened that would make my countrymen regret that I had been intrusted with the work of removing and re-erecting in their metropolis one of the most famous monuments of the Old World and the most ancient and interesting relic of the past on the American Continent." – H.H. Gorringe.