Liberty Enlightening The World, Actually

Alas just me, Dad and Isaac today and what a day it was. We started off by deciding we were going to drive an hour to get to a closer station and then just have an hour train ride as opposed to spending the full two hour commute on the train/ Well, about 20 minutes outside of the town with our train station in it, we came across a campground. Whoopdidoo, it seems we have chosen the wrong location, oops. Then, the truck’s GPS system took us to the wrong place and we only had ten minutes to spare. Then we use Mum’s phone’s GPS and it took us to the right place but the wrong side of the tracks. As we drove to find a way underneath, we saw a train begin to pull up. Just as we pulled into the parking lot and opened our doors, the train pulled away. all of us were depressed and such things about missing the train, but then, a miracle. Our train had yet to come. We managed to get into town, but it took us a little bit longer than usual since the train wasn’t an express train and made stops at all the stations on the way to Penn Station. Our

first order of business was to get on the subway once again and made our way over to Battery Park and the Liberty Island ferry, since the Statue of Liberty was what Isaac wanted to do most. Unfortunately, the subway was obstructed from going that far by construction, so we had to get off at Wall Street and take a complimentary shuttle bus the rest of the way. We managed to get our tickets for the boat without any problems, but when we went through security we had a bit of an incident in which Dad forgot the backpack with all our stuff in it. We ended up getting the backpack back and boarding the next ferry, so all was well. When we got to Liberty Island, we picked up some audio

tours to help us learn some fun facts. As it turns out, to go up the pedestal and the statue, you must make a pre-booking, which cannot be done on the island but they only tell you once you get on the island. Seems a bit backwards to me. The audio tour was good though, even if we were just walking around the base, and we got some good pictures. The statue was created by a sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, and a bridge architect, Gustave Eiffel, from France during the reign of Napoleon III, a gift to the United States and a bit of a slap in the face to France, because they were publicly announcing that the U.S.A. were a free country, whereas they were not. There is a lot of symbolism in the statue. Her crown has seven points, symbolizing the seven continents and the seven seas. The torch she bears is a symbol of hope, a light in the darkness.

She is modelled after the Roman goddess Libertas, the goddess of freedom and wears a Roman toga. She carries the Declaration of Independence under the arm not raised in the sky and it is inscribed with the date July 4th, 1776. Around her feet are broken chains that she is walking out of and she is face towards the old world. She was meant to be the first thing immigrants would see of the new world when they traveled across the ocean on their ships. The pedestal underneath her feet was not part of the original design, but the statue would not be able to stand upright without it. However, it was not the designers of the statue that built it. The owner of the newspaper, the World, Joseph Pulitzer, started a

fundraiser in order to build the pedestal, which is set on top of an old fort. The star shaped base is actually the walls of the fort. The inside of the statue is made up of multiple crossing beams, much like the supports of a bridge, which is why Gustave Eiffel was hired, even though it was still a few years before he built his famed tower. The Statue of Liberty’s real name is Liberty Enlightening the World and was unveiled on Liberty Island on October 28th, 1886. It was the colour of a new penny for twenty years after it’s dedication before the metal was oxidized and became the green it is today. They’ve had a few complications with the tower over time, especially the slight issue with the copper exterior, which is the thickness of two pennies and the iron support bars on the inside. The two together

caused a galvanic reaction and caused corrosion in the iron. The statue had to go through a complete restoration in which all the iron bars were replace with steel. They still have to do minor repairs to the different sheets of metal, but it will still be standing for a while I think. After our tour, we got back on the ferry and took it over to Ellis Island. They have a museum that takes up most of the island and that used to be the immigration port. They would have thousands of people go through that building all the time, some having to be quarantined or sent back home if they were too sick. We didn’t have too much time to look around, since we really just wanted a quick look, but it was definitely cool to see a building that so many people have gone through in the last four hundred years. After we got back ashore, since I wanted to go for lunch at the restaurant Five Napkin Burgers because it had been recommended to me by one of my friends, we got on the subway on our way up to 7th Ave. The burgers were really good, as were the milkshakes, so it was definitely worth it. That basically concluded to we walked back to Penn Station and caught the next train out to our stop. It wasn’t even dark out when we got back, a new record. Peace out m8s.

#camping #newyork #newyorkcity