New York City Guide: Part 4

I know it’s touristy, but I really wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty in her green dress and her crown and her ~~ice cream cone~~ torch are amazing! And I had to see her up close. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that if you want to see ~~up her skirt~~ inside her, you need to get passes likes 3 MONTHS BEFORE! Yeah. So don’t do what I did, plan it out and get some passes!The trip to the Statue of Liberty is pretty cool. $18 and you get to go on a ferry ride to Lady Liberty where you can walk around and they have a nice little cafe. Then you hop back on the ferry and they take you over to Ellis Island where you can walk through the museum and see what it was like as an immigrant coming to NYC back in the day. And then you hop back on the ferry and they take you back to the city. Super simple. The worst thing might be the security line to get to the ferry. I saw warnings that during peak season the line can be 3 hours long. Wow. I really loved Ellis Island. It reminded me of Alcatraz in some ways. It was an island used to hold people, and it is no longer used. They have done a lot of renovating to Ellis Island which kind of disappointed me.They had a bunch of photos of what Ellis Island used to look like before it was renovated and I would have liked to have seen it like that instead of viewing museum cases and photos. And unfortunately a lot of the museum cases were empty because of Hurricane Sandy.The 9/11 Memorial is nearby Battery Park where the ferry returns from Ellis Island. I was surprised at how large the memorial is. I saw the first pool and all the names, and then I turned the corner and saw the second pool. The memorial is so very well done and heartbreaking.Nearby, this statue of a businessman, named Double Check, sits checking his briefcase. You can see the scars on his back from 9/11. Check out this photo of him in the destruction.

Be sure to check out my Part 3 of my New York City Guide, Coney Island!