6-7-17 NYC Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty
We got into our marina in the Great Kills area on Staten Island. It was a gloomy cool rainy day. John our Harbor host was a dream. He took Scott and I to the grocery store and laundromat. We had been at anchor or on a mooring ball for 14 days. We needed to re-provision. We met with a gang of 16 Loopers for Dinner. Fun night
John brought us some bad news. We had purchased tickets online to go to the Statue of Liberty leaving from New Jersey. It made sense, to us, to book it out of that station because it was on the same side of the river. Why go all the way to NYC? We found out why…because there is no public transportation from Staten Island to New Jersey. Ugg We scrambled to make arrangements for a car, that was supposed to be cheaper than Uber, to drive us. However, in the end, we got stiffed and paid about $20 more than was quoted, because they misunderstood which dock to go to. We are happy to say that was our only calamity in NYC. We made out pretty good I’d say.
We got ticket to go to the top of the Pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. We wanted to go all the way to the crown, but those tickets sell out 3 months in advance. After climbing the 215 steps to the pedestal and saw the narrow winding staircase to the crown, we decided God was watching out for us. The whole thing is quite amazing. The pure size and structure etc. left us in awe.
Click the IMG button above to see and hear the choir singing outside the Statue of Liberty. We were blessed to hear them.
From the Statue, the Ferry took us to Ellis Island. This is where immigrants went to get checked into the US. I was particularly interested in Ellis Island because my Grandfather, came to the US through Ellis Island. He came on the ship Mount Clinton from Bottrop Germany in 1923 as Bruno Arthur Bloch. After arriving he changed his name to Arthur Bruno Bloch because of the stigma attached to Bruno being a common German name.
The immigrants walked up the first set of steps, under the watchful eye of several doctors who were looking for potential health issues. It they were limping or breathing hard, the doctor would put chalk mark on their coat. This meant they needed a medical exam. If they seemed mentally off they got an X put on their coat. Some people were in awe of the size of the room they were in; they were staring at the ceiling with their mouths open. That got them an X and a mental exam. We saw where they checked in, the benches they waited on and the various rooms, used for medical or mental exams, court room hearings of potential illegal immigrants. There was a hospital to treat people that were ill or injured. If they had something communicable like TB they would be sent back. They also had to have enough money to support themselves or they were sent back. Once they were clear medically, mentally, legally and financially, they were directed to get their money exchanged to US dollars and on to a public transportation area. Many did not speak English. We could only imagine how difficult it was to figure out where to go. We learned so much and it meant a lot to me because of my Grandfather.
On our way home, we took the ferry to NYC walked around a bit like lost puppies. We got bus passes, found a bus and headed home before rush hour which starts around 3:30. We left at three and our bus was already full!
We had heard that people in NYC are rude, but we found them to be very helpful and nice people. It was a great first day in NYC.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for part two of NYC.
Karen and Scott
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