On Saturday, July 13, we visited New York City. We took the ferry from Liberty State Park, in New Jersey to Ellis Island. After returning to the park, we drove to New York City and went to Ground Zero. Even though it was pretty much cleaned up, the size of the hole, the damaged buildings, the memorials, and the people all came together to remind us of the scope of this evil tragedy.
The restored train station at Liberty State Park where commuters from NY caught the train for points in NJ. This is also the first place many immigrants came when released from Ellis Island.
The view of the sky line from the ferry to Ellis Island. The World Trade Center was behind the building with the glass buildings with the green domes.
View of the Statue of Liberty from the ferry.
Ellis Island - much bigger than we expected. Only the main building has been restored and it took us three hours to go through it. Up to 5000 people a day were processed here.
The main processing room where the people came to from the ships to be processed - the room when in use was filled with folks waiting to be interviewed and examined, and hopefully admitted to the United States. The roof was made of tile and the chandeliers were great.
Becki inspecting the hospital equipment found when the building was opened for restoration
After leaving Ellis Island we went to NYC. In spite of concerns about finding where we needed to be and trying to find a parking space - we made the correct turns and ended up right at Ground Zero and found a curb side parking space right at the corner.
We managed to escape from New York City, made it back to the hotel, back to Newark the next morning....after chatting with Stephen on the phone, had a good flight back.
