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Day 68 New York - Sunday
Today was not as late a start as you might imagine considering we only went to bed in the early hours of the morning. However, once ready to depart for the day's sightseeing we decided to take the subway so as to arrive at Battery Park (southern tip of the island) in a timely manner. The subway was only a street away at the corner of 14th Street and 7th Avenue. Battery Park is the last stop on the train line in this direction.
We made our way to Liberty Island ferry ticket office to obtain our pre-booked tickets for Liberty and Ellis Islands and the climb to the crown of the Statue of Liberty (the latter requires booking at least 6 months in advance due to the limited number of people who can fit in the space as both the stairway and the crown are rather cramped).
Once we obtained the tickets we had an hour and a quarter before lining up to catch the ferry. We had a look at Clinton Castle - a fort built to defend the harbour from the British in 1812. It was named for a mayor and later Governor of the state in the 1800's.
We then toured the Collectors Room at what was Custom's House and now a branch of the Smithsonian Museum. The room is opened to the public infrequently so we were lucky to be there on one of these days. It is large room with heavy dark wood panelling on the walls and ceiling. This room was used on special occasions when the local officials wished to show off to visiting officials.
Next we took a stroll up Broadway past the statue of the Bull of Wall Street to Wall Street itself. Unfortunately, even at such an early hour the Bull was a magnet to Asian tourists and it was a challenge to take a photo to actually see the Bull itself. Everyone wanted a picture of them standing next to the Bull. On a later trip we noticed it was the same.
From Wall Street we turned into Broad Street. It is on the corner of these two streets that the New York Stock Exchange can be found. It is also at the intersection where the Federal Building is located with a statue of George Washington. More Asian tourists. It is interesting to note that we had not encountered so many Asian tourists in New York so far.
Making our way back to Battery Park we joined the queue to go through security before boarding the ferry. The people organising the queues need to learn how to manage such as they were basically pushing forward from a large area into a smaller queue with no thought or organisation. Security at the ferry terminal is similar to that at an airport. As it was quite a breezy day the harbour was quite choppy. The ferry had more roll than we experienced on either of our cruises.
Arriving at Liberty Island we received our audio guides and headed off to yet another airline type security check in before entering the statue. As we had the pass for the crown they suggested we take the elevator to the pedestal as we would still have 167 stairs to climb from the pedestal to the crown. The staircase is a double helix, meaning that two spiral staircases create the central column of the statue. Both are narrow, only one person of average size wide, so one is the ascending and the other the descending staircase. I can vouch that it was much easier to slide down the stair rail than climb the stairs. They had provided platforms at different levels to allow you to investigate how the statute was made. Jumping ahead we were advised that the Lady had a nose job in recent history where the copper had corroded. It was not entirely obvious when we checked on the "copper surgery" on the way down.
On arrival in the crown there are 2 national park guides to provide you with information about the statue and its history and that of Liberty Island. Originally, a bastion fort (11 pointed star) to defend against the British, it was chosen by the French designer of the statue as the place for statue to be erected. The people of France gifted the statue to the US on what was to be the 100th anniversary of the war of independence and also the successful outcome of the civil war recognising the rights of the slaves. The US were to provide the pedestal on which the statue stands. Unfortunately work had not been completed on the pedestal so only the Lady's arm with the light were displayed for the 100th anniversary.
It was interesting to note that the Statute of Liberty was funded by the people of France, not by the French government. The statue was also intended as a reminder to Napoleon that the people of the USA lived in a democracy whereas the people of France were still oppressed under Napoleon's rule.
Descending the staircase we walked around the pedestal then descended to the base of the statue. We then went through the museum documenting the reason for the gift, information on the designer and the engineer, the choice of placement and the US reaction to the gift. One could spend a great deal of time reading every document or words on the displays.
Leaving Liberty we headed to Ellis Island which was the disembarkment point for immigrants. Here they were herded into a large hall where their mental and physical health were checked as were their suitability of character to enter the US. Those individuals who did not pass the physical were detained in the hospital on the island to see if they would improve. If their health did not improve, they were deported back to their country of origin. They had set up a number of rooms portraying the way the immigrants were treated, including one dormitory where they had beds hanging from chains that could be raised so the room could be used for other purposes during the day. Again, one could spend several hours there. However, it was late in the day, we were quite weary so we joined the queue for one of the last ferries back to Manhattan.
Once back in Manhattan we started our walk back towards the apartment. This took us to the 911 Museum site where we purchased our tickets for the next morning. We then headed east to the Brooklyn bridge (renewed energy!). It was coming close to dusk on a Sunday afternoon but there was still a large pedestrian crowd crossing the bridge. The pedestrian traffic walks in the centre of the bridge above the car traffic. Those riding bikes have a bicycle lane next to the pedestrian lane but the pedestrians were overflowing into the bike lane so there was some pandemonium at times.
By this time the wind was becoming strong again and had a real bite to it so we only walked as far as the first pillar before turning back and heading for home. Only managed 18km today.
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