Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty

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HISTORY
The Two Sisters
America probably could not have won its freedom from the British during the American Revolution without the help of the French. France provided arms, ships, money and men to the American colonies. Some Frenchmen - most notably the Marquis de Lafayette, a close friend of George Washington - even became high-ranking officers in the American army. It was an alliance of respect and friendship that the French would not forget.

Almost 100 years later, in 1865, after the end of the American Civil War, several French intellectuals, who were opposed to the oppressive regime of Napoleon III, were at a small dinner party. They discussed their admiration for America's success in establishing a democratic government and abolishing slavery at the end of the civil war. The dinner was hosted by Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye. Laboulaye was a scholar, jurist, abolitionist and a leader of the "liberals," the political group dedicated to establishing a French republican government.

During the evening, talk turned to the close historic ties and love of liberty the two nations shared. Laboulaye noted that there was "a genuine flow of sympathy" between the two nations and he called France and America "the two sisters."

As he continued speaking, reflecting on the centennial of American independence only 11 years in the future, Laboulaye commented, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if people in France gave the United States a great monument as a lasting memorial to independence and thereby showed that the French government was also dedicated to the idea of human liberty. Laboulaye's question struck a responsive chord in one of his guests, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, a successful, 31-year-old sculptor from Colmar, a town in the eastern province of Alsace, France. Years later, recalling the dinner, Bartholdi wrote that Laboulaye's idea "interested me so deeply that it remained fixed in my memory." So was sown the seed of inspiration that would become the Statue of Liberty.


After Breakfast across the road at the Evergreen coffee shop Restaurant I made my way to Times Square subway .Unlike the UK the entrance to the subways are unobtrusive and can be hard to spot .One thing about the London Underground ,the schematic of the network is so simple to follow ,however the N.Y. map of their underground is extremely confusing ,the trains don’t help either all they have on the front as to their destination is a letter or a colour so you end up to a certain extent taking pot luck .try asking somebody and 99 times out of a 100 they will be an immigrant .so with a bit of luck got to Wall Street subway and walked to the port where one picks up the ferry. This was in a park called Battery Park .I arrived there at 14-30 and encountered a queue that was at least 200metres long Saturday a bad day to visit ,after about an hour I discovered why there was such a delay ,Security ,exactly the same as boarding an aircraft. New York is paranoid about security (one can understand re Twin Towers) but very inconvenient at 16-00 we boarded the ferry and made our way towards Ellis Island, however because of the long delay you had to makes a choice of Ellis Island or Liberty Island not possible to visit both I elected to go to liberty Island and view the Statue of Liberty .we first docked at Ellis Island where peopled disembarked.

Ellis Island the immigration station opened on January 1, 1892 and was closed in November 1954, but not before processing 12 million European immigrants (estimates range up to 20 million). In the 50 years before Ellis Island opened, over 8 million immigrants had been processed locally by New York State officials at Castle Garden Immigration Depot in Manhattan. Many who were allowed entry settled in New York and northern New Jersey for at least their first few years in America. During this time period, Angel Island (between Alcatraz and the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco Bay) was opened on the West Coast, processing mostly Chinese immigrants.

Ellis Island was one of 30 processing stations opened by the federal government. It was the major processing station for third class/steerage immigrants entering the United States in 1892; it processed 70% of all immigrants at the time. Wealthy immigrants that traveled first class and second class would get automatic entry into the United States. First they had to pass a six second physical examination. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. Next they were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money they carried with them. Generally those immigrants who were approved spent from three to five hours at Ellis Island. However more than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers and immigrants were rejected outright because they were considered "likely to become a public charge." About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity.Today, over 40 percent of America's population can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island.



We then went on to Liberty Island
Liberty Island, formerly called Bedloe's Island, is a small uninhabited island in Upper New York Bay, best known as the location of the Statue of Liberty. The name Liberty Island has been in use since the early 20th century, although the name was not officially changed until 1956. Before the Statue of Liberty, Bedloe's Island was the home to Fort Wood, an eleven pointed star-shaped battery made of granite. Because of this, its nickname was "Star Fort".
The island is the property of the federal government and is operated by the National Park Service. It is accessible to the public only by ferry— either from Battery Park in Manhattan or Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. It is separated from nearby Ellis Island by approximately 1 mi (1.6 km).
Liberty Island is 2000 feet (600 m) from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. By comparison it is 1-5/8 statute miles (2.6 kilometers) from Battery Park in Manhattan. The island has a land area of 59,558 square meters, or 14.717 acres, according to the United States Census Bureau.
Since September 11, 2001, the island is guarded by around-the-clock patrols of the United States Coast Guard.
Liberty Enlightening the World (French: La liberté éclairant le monde), known more commonly as the Statue of Liberty (Statue de la Liberté), is a colossal statue given to the United States by France in 1886, standing at Liberty Island, New Jersey in the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor as a welcome to all visitors, immigrants, and returning Americans. The copper-clad statue, dedicated on October 28, 1886, commemorates the centennial of the United States and is a gesture of friendship between the two nations. The sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower, engineered the internal structure. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the choice of copper in the statue's construction and adoption of the Repoussé technique.
The statue shows a woman standing upright, dressed in a robe and a seven point spiked crown representing the seven seas and continents, holding a stone tablet close to her body in her left hand and a flaming torch high in her right hand. The statue is made of a sheeting of pure copper, hung on a framework of steel (originally puddled iron) with the exception of the flame of the torch, which is coated in gold leaf. It stands atop a rectangular stonework pedestal, itself on an irregular eleven-pointed star foundation. The statue is 151' 1" (46.5 m) tall, with the foundation adding another 154 feet (46.9 m). The tablet contains the text "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776) commemorating the date of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Worldwide, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the United States, and, in a more general sense, represents liberty and escape from oppression. The Statue of Liberty was, from 1886 until the jet age, often one of the first glimpses of the United States for millions of immigrants after ocean voyages from Europe. In terms of visual impact, the Statue of Liberty appears to draw inspiration from il Sancarlone or the Colossus of Rhodes. The statue is a central part of Statue of Liberty National Monument and is administered by the National Park Service.


On arrival we all disembarked and had approximately 1 hour to visit the island It certainly is a magnificent statue the pedestal that it stands on took several years to erect as the money had to be raised by public donation it’s the equivalent of 11 stories high .Meanwhile the statue remained in France .it was assembled there and when the pedestal was finished the statue was dismantled and transported to New York and reassembled .Now days one is restricted how far you can go up the internal structure, only to the top of the supporting base because of safety factors .At 18-00 we returned to the ferry and returned to Manhattan. From there I made my way to the subway at Wall Street and returned to Times Square and wandered around people watching

Phileas

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Photos

Ellis Building
More than 20million imigrants were Processed through Ellis Island

Statue of Liberty
This was the first symbol of Freedom the imigrant saw on arrival in New York

Damaged Statue
This was at the Trade Centre when it was destroyed and was severely damaged itself