September 10, 2008

Wednesday 10~~~ We were up early this morning to go to Ellis Island and the island of the Statue of Liberty. We drove to the port, and took a ferry across to the islands. We parked in a two hour lot, as we thought that would be plenty of time to see both islands. We went to Ellis Island first and there was so much to see, (pictures) I think we were overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin. We went on one of the Ranger tours thinking that would be a good thing to do to learn more about it all. He was a pretty good guide, but we had already seen the movie they have on the story of the immigrants coming over on the ships and he was just a repeat, he was way to detailed for Sharon to deal with, so she left the group and did her own tour. By now we knew we wouldn't be done and back to the parking lot in 2 hours, so Kent thought he should go back and move the truck. The guides convinced us it would be OK as there probably wasn't anyone doing that job anyway. They were right, and there was no ticket on our truck when we got back. In 1924 Mass immigration ended, immigrants were now inspected in their countries of origin.The Island was primarily used for detention and deportation cases, part of the island was used by the coast guard. On November 29, 1954 Ellis Island closed, in 1976 they opened it to the public for limited seasonal visitation. In 1984 it was closed for $170 million restoration. September 10, 1990 it reopened with extensive facilities, including new museums and exhibits. There is still so much more they are working on, so it will be even nicer in a few more years. It took us about 4 hours to see all the rooms and exhibits before we got back on the ferry and went to the island of the Statue of Liberty. There are no words to describe the beauty of the statue as you get closer and closer to it. (picture) It was a gift of international friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, it is 22 stories high (305 feet) and there is 25 windows in the crown. The 7 rays of the Statue's crown represents the seven seas and continents of the world. The tablet which the statue holds in her left hand reads (in Roman numeral) " July 4th, 1776. The green color of the statue is from the oxidizing of the copper from the elements. We walked all over and took a lot of pictures and read its history. You can no longer climb the 354 steps to the Statue's crown since 911. The fire dept. has never felt it to be a safe thing for people to go up inside the Statue because of no way to escape in case of a fire, so the 911 ordeal just proved their point. It didn't take as long to see everything here, as we headed home and we decided we had time to go to ground zero.