Pilgrimage To Liberty Island

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

We have made a two-night trip to New York from September 24-26, 2010. This time, our son has driven us to New York starting from Shrewsbury in Massachusetts at six o’clock evening and reaching New York at nine but checked in the Embassy Suite hotel at about 10. It has been a long drive for us. So we simply have gone to sleep. Next day, we visit the ‘Liberty Island’ and ‘Ellis Island’ and gain some historical background of the United States of America. We make a quick drive tour to Jackson Height and Harlem before returning back Shrewsbury.

Next morning, we have woken up to know that our son has already bought the e-tickets to the Liberty Island and the Ellis Island. So, we go down to the second storey cafeteria in the hotel and have a breakfast. Thereafter, we walk along the embankment of the Hudson River for about a half hour to reach the dock where we need to take a ferry to those islands.

A male voice has been saying that the airport style security is done before boarding a ferry; so take off all sorts of metallic wearing to expedite the security otherwise you will need to wait for another 20 minutes, as next ferry will be available only after 20 minutes. So, by the time we are nearby the security check we have everything in one pack to place on a tray and then pass through the security check.

The ferry is full of visitors. It has sailed for about 20 minutes before reaching the Liberty Island. Some of the visitors including me have been busy with taking the shots of the Statue of Liberty, as we sail toward the Liberty Island. I have seen it in trailers and pictures in the past but now I am seeing it. It has been so thrilling to see the statue from the distance. My camera has already captured several shots of the statue before reaching the island.

The island is just big enough to hold such a large statue. My son has hired an audio for me to listen the history of the Statue and the island. Listening to the history on the audio we slowly move on to the statue. We can see the tall buildings standing in New Jersey and Manhattan from the island. While walking around the statue we have read several plaques that give information about the statue and the island.

The Statue of Liberty stands on the remains of Fort Wood built in the shape of an eleven-pointed star between 1808 and 1811 as one link in a chain of defenses protecting New York City and its vital harbor. The statue is as tall as a fifteen-storey building. When the statue was built, New York had buildings up to five-storey tall only. So, the statue was the tallest building at that time.

French sculpture Frederic Auguste Bartholdi has designed the Statue of Liberty, and Alexandre Gustave Eiffel has designed an ingenious iron framework of armature bars and girders for holding the copper sheets that have become the outer parts of the statue. More than 300 copper sheets made of copper mined in Karmoy, Norway give a shape of the statue. According to the information received from the audio, the fingernail of the statue is as larger as an arm of a human. We can see the copper sheets bound together by nails to form the statue. Reaction of the copper sheets of the statue with the oxygen of the atmosphere has taken 30 years to give the green color of the statue we see today.

The statue of Liberty is the symbols of human rights, freedom and independence. The torch and flame she holds on her right hand are the symbols of truth and justice. The tablet of law she holds in her left arm is inscribed in Roman numerals the date of the American Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. The broken shackles at her feet are the symbol of the escape from tyranny. Her crown has seven rays that suggest the seven seas and seven continents.

The French have made the elements of the statue and shipped them to the United States but the Americans have no money to build a pedestal for the statue to stand on. So, they have made a collection from the individuals to make a fund for building a pedestal. The height of the granite pedestal is about ten-story building for the statue of 105 feet to stand on. Eminent American architect Richard Morris Hunt has designed the pedestal and former Civil War General Charles P. Stone has engineered it.

After visiting the Liberty Island, we again board the ferry to visit the Ellis Island. One of the plaques on the Ellis Island says that before 1855 immigrants arriving at the port of New York on the vessels checked and cleared for all “loathsome and contagious diseases” freely entered the United States. At Castle Garden in Battery Park between 1855 and 1890, New York State immigration officials have formally processed about 8 million new immigrants traveling through the Port of New York to the United State of America.

After 1890, the Federal government has taken over the responsibility for processing immigrants. The Federal government has made it mandatory to all third class and steerage passengers bound for the port of New York to be inspected at the Ellis Island Immigration Station. It has processed more than 12 million hopeful immigrants between 1892 and 1954 taking only a few hours for the medical and legal inspection process. It has sent back only two percent of those immigrants about 240,000 people that have not met the medical and legal standard of that time at the cost of the steamship companies.

We have gone around the Ellis Island Immigration Museum for about one hour. It has pictures of how the immigrants have arrived with their belongings and have lined up for the immigration checkup. It has also various statistical records of immigrants coming from different continents and the forced immigration from the Africa, and of the missionaries.

After going around the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, we board one of the ferries for coming back to New York City. It has taken only a few minutes to reach the dock. We walk back to the World Financial Center where we have rested for some time on the ground floor of the World Financial Center and then have an afternoon meal there. Then we walk to the ground zero area where Twin Towers had stood until September 11, 2001, and currently, the construction of a new building has been going on. The steel structure of a building has been more than 26-story tower.

It has been already late afternoon; our aim is to visit the famous ‘Times Square’. It has taken some time for us to find the right subway station due to the unclear subway map and the invisible subway station.

The Times Square we have seen is quite different from the impression we have had. The crowd and the people at the Times Square have reminded us the Ason Square and Thamel area in Kathmandu although we cannot compare our ancient square with the modern square in New York. Our son has said that if a company has no billboard at the Times Square means it has not done business in the USA. Our mission to New York would not have been completed without the visit to the Times Square.

On September 26, we have made a journey to the UN building, Jackson Height where we find mostly the Indian-American’s businesses; we feel the smell of Indian cuisine and see the Indian sari stores and golden jewelry stores, and billboards in Bengali and English. We also drive to Harlem where mostly the Afro-Americans live.

We travel back to Shrewsbury after a brief visit to New York on September 26.

Copies of plaques on the Liberty Island and the Ellis Island:

Plaque titled “Liberty Island”: This twelve-acre speck of land had many names. In the pre-Columbian era it was known as “Minnissais” or Lesser Island, by the native Cairarsie Indian tribe. To the later European colonists, it was known as Love, Kennedy, Great Oyster, Corporation and Bedloe’s Island. The island has also had many varied uses over the years: prehistoric Indian site, farm, summer house, quarantine station, Tory refuge, French naval hospital, dump, gallows, military prison and eventually, a military fortification named Fort Wood.

In 1924, Fort Wood and the Statue of Liberty were proclaimed a national monument by President Calvin Coolidge. Since 1937, the entire island has been part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. In 1956, the island’s name was changed one more time, from Bedloe’s Island to Liberty Island.

Plaque titled “Fort Wood”: The statue of Liberty’s pedestal sits atop the remains of Fort Wood, originally one link in a chain of defenses protecting New York City and its vital harbor. The fort was built between 1808 and 1811 in the shape of an eleven-pointed star and was occupied by the War Department as an army post until 1937. The eleven-pointed star design was brought to North America by French military engineers in the 17th century. The fort acted as a lookout position with harbor guns entrenched near the shore. Many incised markings, believed to be Masonic symbols, have been found on its granite exterior walls and the surrounding lawn.

Plaque titled “Liberty’s Symbols”: The statue of Liberty conveys its message of freedom through a number of dramatic symbols. The broken shackles at her feet signify escape from tyranny. In her left arm, she holds a tablet of law inscribed in Roman numerals the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Her crown’s seven rays suggest the seven seas and seven continents. Most significant of all, however, her torch and flame symbolize truth and justice enlightening the world. Perhaps no poem brings these symbols to life more than “The New Colossus,” a sonnet written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 as an attempt to raise funds for the pedestal’s completion.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fume,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Here at our sea-washed, sunset-gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows worldwide welcome, her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp” cries she,
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,
Your wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
Send these, the homeless, tempest-lost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus (1819-1887)

Plaque titled “Building the Statue of Liberty”: The French sculpture, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty as a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Over 300 thin sheets of copper, most of it from a copper mine in Karmoy, Norway, fit together to form the Statue’s outer skin. Each copper sheet is 3/32 of an inch thick, about the thickness of two coins. The sheets were shaped in France using the ancient repousse method in which the metal is hammered and shaped within large wooden and plaster molds. The finished pieces were then shipped to the United Sates where they were assembled and supported on an ingenious iron framework of armature bars and girder’s designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. Construction of the Statue started early 1886.

Plaque titled “The Pedestal”: The granite pedestal of the Statue was paid for entirely by private funds raised in the United States. It was designed by the eminent American architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and engineered by former Civil War General, Charles P. Stone. Its variety of strong shapes and rich textures makes the pedestal seem less massive as it tapers gracefully upward. Roughly the height of a ten-story building, the tremendous structure rests on a huge concrete foundation that is anchored to surrounding Fort Wood. The concrete foundation was once exposed, but now is enclosed by a museum.

Plaque titled “Why is the Statue Green?:” The answer is in the air. The Statue’s skin is made of copper when copper is exposed to oxygen in the air it undergoes a chemical reaction called oxidation. The reaction causes a fine crust or film to develop that is usually green in color. This layer protects the original metal underneath. In copper and bronze, this natural protective process is called patination.  It took nearly thirty years for the Statue to turn from her original copper color to the green you see today. The patination process can also be observed on building where copper or bronze are used for roofing and ornamentation such as ferry dock on Liberty Island and on the roof and domes of the Immigration Station at Ellis Island.

Plaque titled “Immigration Processing In New York”: Prior to 1855, immigrants arriving at the port of New York were free to enter the United States if their vessel was checked and cleared for all “loathsome and contagious diseases.” Between 1855 and 1890, approximately 8 million new immigrants traveling through the Port of New York were formally processed at Castle Garden in Battery Park by New York State immigration officials.

After 1890, the Federal government assumed responsibility for processing immigrants. All third class and steerage passengers bound for the port of New York were required to be inspected at the Ellis Island Immigration Station, where more than 12 million hopeful immigrants were processed between 1892 and 1954. For most, the medical and legal inspection process took only a few hours. Overall, only two percent of those immigrants processed at Ellis Island, about 240,000 people, were excluded from entering the United States and these were sent back at the steamship company’s expense. The overwhelming majority of immigrants were free to begin new lives in America.”

Ends