Monday, 06 January 2003
Yearning to be free:
Today we visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I had been to the Statue before, many years ago (1982 to be exact), but it was my first trip to the island. When my family and I visited in 1982, you could actually climb a long, narrow set of stairs to the top of the statue, and peer out through small windows between the spires of her crown; there was also a side branch that led up to the torch, but in '82 those stairs were closed for safety reasons: The statue was not in good structural condition at the time (this was before the restoration in '86), and there was some fear that tourists climing into the arm might actually damage the statue.
Today you can't even enter the museum at the base, much less climb inside the statue. The interior closed to the public just after September 11th, and has not reopened since.
I'm glad I got to climb the Statue of Liberty when I did, but I'm saddened that one of my childhood experiences is no longer possible.
This photo of the NYC skyline shows where the World Trade Center stood,
as seen from Liberty Island. It was visible between the green-capped
building and the one that looks like a steeple, near the centre of the
photo. They were much taller than the surrounding buildings.
Some of the most memorable photos from September 11th were taken on or near Liberty Island, including the one on this page. On the day of the attacks, an armada of tugboats, ferries, dinner cruises, and other private vessels spontaneously organized into an evacuation fleet, and ferried New Yorkers out of Manhattan to safety; our ferry was one of them, according to a plaque on the wall.
Ellis Island holds no special meaning for me—from what little I can tell from genealogical records, my ancestors arrived long before then (my mother's family arrived in the late 1600s, and Dad's family tree dead-ends with a man named "George Powhatan Forbes," whom I suspect was more Powhatan than Forbes). It's still an interesting place, though: Supposedly 40% of Americans can trace their ancestry to someone who passed through immigration here. Twelve million immigrants passed through Ellis Island, part of the largest peaceful migration in human history; most were Europeans fleeing from war, famine, or persecution.
- Posted by Scott Forbes at 8:00 am. comments.
