Our day at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

P1060174c, originally uploaded by davethetemp.

At Battery Park on Wednesday, we found the ticket booth for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. It was too late to go but we bought tickets for noon Thursday. After a nice breakfast together, Barb and I headed back to the park (this time watching for the correct trains).

At the boat terminal, we were surprised again by the level of security. Barb kept setting off the metal detector and eventually got a pat down.

The first stop was Liberty Island, I didn't think much of going there. Standing under a statue makes for lousy photos and in my mind the statue doesn't much history about it. I was surprised though at the quality of the museum in the pedestal. There was a fair bit about the technology of the statue, but the far more interesting section of the museum focused on the symbolism of the statue itself and how it had been used in public debates on immigration, patriotism and the meaning of liberty. Lots of posters, editorial cartoons, and other things to delight my not so inner history geek. Our planned 10 minutes turned into an hour and a half. The personal testimonials at the museum from immigrants who remembers seeing the statue of liberty from their ships as they came to America was also a great lead in to our next stop: Ellis Island. I also took my favourite photo of the trip so far.

At Ellis Island, the main building for processing immigrants was, beautiful. Apparently it won international awards when it was built. It was designed to process thousands of new arrivals everyday. The tile floor were well worn and every support column inside was covered in glazed white tile as high as you could reach for easy disinfection. I found the tiled columns and floors most evocative. You put your hand against them and wondered how many tens of thousands had done the same. After the great halls for baggage and reception, we passed through a maze of rooms where newcomers were examined for physical and mental problems, and questioned about theirs skills, money, and prospects in the New World. Other rooms included an excellent museum on immigration, including lots of displays on anti-immigration in America. We caught the last ferry of the island and were pretty wiped from a day on our feet.

After we got back to our hotel area on the subway, we decided to walk the neighbourhood both to find a restaurant and soak up the atmosphere. We'd been lucky with such beautiful weather and it was a prime walking time. We settled for a very small Italian restaurant and spent a wonderful evening over a couple appetizers and splitting a really nice seafood risotto.