There are a few things on our ‘must-do’ list in New York. Many are simple foods and activities that will sit alongside other activities.One of the bigger ones is to go to Liberty Island to see the Statue… we couldn’t have asked for a better day to do it!
We headed down to Battery Park on the subway with the intent that we wouldn’t walk as much today although for one of the worlds biggest tourist attractions it was also one of the hardest to navigate to. I will give them credit for their communication at the airport-style security checkpoints… clear direction as to what needed to be removed, and the suggestion to put it in pockets… why do airports wait until everyone has got it wrong?!?!
A couple of chuckles along the way… the trolley solution at a multi-level Trader Joes supermarket made me grateful for the good old travelator, and the list of languages available for an audio guide left me wondering when I started speaking American.
It’s a short boat ride to Liberty Island, past the statue. The boat has a clear lean to the side as 700ish tourists cram to the right hand side of the vessel to get great photos.
We opted for the audio guide to get a good dose of history along with the views. Liberty Island was originally known as Minnissais and after many other names was Bedloe’s Island until it became Liberty Island in 1956. It’s also had many uses over the years including fishing, a quarantine station, naval hospital and eventually a military fortification ‘Fort Wood’. The Bedloe’s Island site was selected as all ships had to sail past it when they entered New York – a major immigration area at the time. Regardless of its name or use, it’s a stunning spot from which to view New York!
The original idea for the ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ statue emerged in 1865 from Edouard Laboulaye as a memorial to US independence as a joint effort between France and the US. The statue was funded by France, while the pedestal was funded by US citizens.
The statue was designed by Frederic Bartholdi and is believed to be a likeness to the goddess ‘Libertas’. The crown is reflective of rays of the sun, the tablet references the date of US independence and the broken chains at her feet and her stepping forward represent freedom.
Gustave Eiffel designed the inner structure to support the copper outer layer, and Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedestal. The statue was constructed in France, and then shipped in pieces to the US.
Fundraising for the pedestal proved hard, so poet Emma Lazarus was asked to donate an original work to build awareness. Her poem ‘The New Colossus’ is widely known with the line ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’. Later, Joseph Purlitzer’s initiative to print the name of every citizen who donated on the front page of the New York World (regardless of donation size) was successful in raising the required funds.
This small monument to Laboulaye, Bartholdi, Eiffel, Purlitzer and Lazarus was one of my favourite pieces of the site. It highlights the huge collaborative intersection between art, engineering, culture and finance. The Statue of Liberty would have been quite a design challenge in the 1800s… today I imagine that politics would make it impossible!
The tour to Liberty Island also takes visitors to Ellis Island – the site of the immigration inspection and processing station from 1892 from 1954. Today it’s a beautiful spacious building. For the 12 million arrivals over the years, having spent weeks on a boat, and with little understating of English, it would have been overwhelming.
The museum shares how people had their physical and mental health assessed in minutes before being cleared for entry or sent for further assessment. Some of the physical tests seemed inhumane, while the mental tests were designed to assess education levels and processing time. Imagine the pressure if your entry to a new life depended on getting the answers correct in a matter of seconds?!?!
Leaving the bottom of Manhattan Island we ticked off one of the other must do items for the day… a slice of NY a pizza. There’s something particularly good about one slice of fresh, woodfired pizza. You can tell we’re a couple of weeks into a trip by the selection of a slice with broccoli on it 😂
We headed up the West side to the site of the twin towers. The memorial to the 911 attacks is huge, and so well done. It’s so hard to imagine that two enormous buildings once stood there, and the trauma of the people who experienced that day.
The High Line is an elevated rail line that has been converted to a park that runs for about 2km from the Meatpacking District through Chelsea. Built in 2009, it’s another unexpected oasis of green in the city. It also reveals some fabulous residential and commercial buildings… more examples of art meeting architecture and a side to NY that is rarely shown in the media. It’s definitely worth getting off the beaten tourist track in this city!
Back to the hotel ready to recharge after another huge day!!!
Love M and theGrady x
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