Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses…
When we started seriously thinking about living the nomad life we came up with a list of places we thought were a high priority to go and experience with our boys. One of the first places we added to that list was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We think history is important. We need to know what happened so we can avoid making the same mistakes we made before. We need to know where we came from so we can know how far we’ve come.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.”
The only way you can get to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island is by boat…and to be honest…it’s not cheap or super easy. The tickets sell out fast and in some cases months in advance. We were lucky enough to grab five tickets one day while we were in the area.
Before Lady Liberty stood proudly on it, Liberty Island was a star-shaped Fort Wood. You can see Alex standing by a replica of Lady Liberty’s face in the left photo. Charlie is standing with one big foot in the right photo! Lady Liberty has a copper shell about the same thickness as a penny and is 151 feet tall.
There’s a great museum that details how, when, where and who built the Statue of Liberty. We didn’t make it all the way up to the crown. There are only a certain number of people allowed in the crown per day and I didn’t get our tickets reserved in time so we missed that part.
I checked about mid April for tickets and they were already sold out until mid August. Such a bummer. We did get to go up into the pedestal! It was crowded and the view wasn’t much different than the view you get on the ground.
We also stopped at Ellis Island. The boys did the Junior Ranger booklets at both Ellis Island and Liberty Island. The books were different, but the badges were the same. That’s ok…we always learn so much more when the boys go through the Junior Ranger booklets! The NPS does a good job at making sure the kiddos get to specific parts and places while doing the JR booklets that most people just pass by.
In the right photo you can see The Registry Room around 1912. Millions of Americans can claim ancestors who came through the doors of Ellis Island. In the left photo is The Registry Room present day. For over two decades thousands of immigrants (sometimes over 5,ooo in one day) went through The Registry Room.
There’s a really great museum that details not only the buildings on Ellis Island, but also the struggles the immigrants had to go through just to get to Ellis Island and then their struggles once they reached America. The museum had a good selection of America propaganda and some personal items from immigrants. Some of the displays even have actual items that immigrants brought with them on their journey to the U.S. We found it all to be very interesting and the boys found the differences in life then to life now fascinating. I think it was the personal accounts you can read from real people that drew them in.
We found this sign in the Ellis Island museum and I wanted to share it. Our favorite things at the museum were all of the stories. The quotes of what the immigrants thought and/or felt made the history feel more real and not just like words on a page.
I didn’t realize how big Ellis Island is. You’re only allowed to roam around half the island. You have to be on a special tour to see the hospital side. I did get a picture of the Hospital side of Ellis Island as we went by it on the boat. I would love to do the tour and have already started working on talking Jerl into going back some day to see the rest of Ellis Island.
You can see the view of Ellis Island and Liberty Island from the ferry in the photo above. Of the two islands…Ellis was my favorite to explore. It had more of the history and there was a fraction of the people.
So…my only gripe about this is the price of the ferry. There’s only one way to get to the islands and it’s Statue Island Cruises. Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty are both National Parks…they belong to the people…the price of the ferry to see them shouldn’t cost a family of five almost $100. At first I thought maybe that’s just how much ferry rides cost there, but we took a different ferry while we were in NYC and it only cost us $30 to basically go the same distance. It’s sad how some companies take advantage of people.
All in all, we had a great day! We learned so much and the boys earned another badge!
See y’all down the road!
#easternloop2016