This day started early or more correctly, the prior night never ended. Seems there was some big event nearby and the area just outside the Liberty Harbor RV Park was used for parking. One or two cars kept their music going until almost 2:30am when the event ended and celebration started moving into the parking lot.
The police arrived at about the same time with lights flashing and sirens adding to the musical rhapsody. The police would drive from group to group looking for intoxicated individuals. The patty-wagon arrived about 20-minutes later to provide “alternative” transportation for those selected few.
Quiet once again returned to the RV Park at 3:24 am.
We are up, dressed, and had breakfast by 7am so we can catch the light rail. Our goal is to get two of the limited tickets to tour the inside of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty Park in New Jersey is only two stops from our station. It’s a little farther than we thought we wanted to walk given all the walking we expect to do today.
The light rail dropped us off at one side of Liberty Park and the ferry to Ellis and Liberty islands is on the other side. It was a brisk 20-minute walk for us but the weather and temperature was perfect this morning and we enjoy walking.
The ferry terminal is an old train/ferry terminal that has been partially restored to service as an entry point to the Liberty and Ellis Islands. We were able to get tickets for the Statue base tour. Tours into the statue itself are no longer available at any time.
We made the required pass through the metal detector security point before boarding the ferry. Our Statue of Liberty tour was for the hours between 8:45 and 12:45, so we chose to tour her first.
We had to pass through a more complex security check in order to enter the statue base. This consisted of a GE-Entry II explosive detector followed by a metal detector. The tour starts at the Liberty museum where structure, construction timeline, finances, key persons, and construction methods are presented.
You can choose to climb the 156 stairs to the observation deck or ride an elevator. We choose to take the stairs. That may make up for the ice cream we eat at Coney Island yesterday.
The observation deck provides great views of the New York skyline, the bay, and all the boats and ferries running across the water. We watched the Staten Island ferry make several runs… we want to ride that tomorrow. You also get several unique upward views of the statue from the observation deck. Before we descended the stairway to ground level, two openings under the statue provide views of the internal structure.
Our next stop was Ellis Island. This was the primary entry point into the United States during the period of the great migration. My mother’s parents came from Italy during this period. One interesting thing we found was only steerage (or third class) passengers entered thru Ellis Island. First and second passengers were discharged at the New York docks before the boats continued to Ellis Island to discharge the remaining passengers. Again, money has its privileges.
All the ship manifests have been computerized and search facilities are available at the Family History center on Ellis Island and on the Internet. We spent a half-hours searching the computer archives for my grandfather’s records but couldn’t find a match. I may continue this search when we get home.
We retraced our path back to the Liberty Harbor RV Park and we both took a nap before dinner.
