Lady Liberty, Mother of Exiles

Well, it was supposed to be sunny and in the 40s over the course of the weekend here in NYC, but alas, we've been given a weekend full of snow and cold winds. Nevertheless, our first day in the Big Apple included a train ride from our apartment in the Bronx to the famous Grand Central Station, where we saw a Christmas tree covered with 40 Aquos digital flat-screen TVs (there was a drawing for them, and Beckie entered all of us into it). From there, we figured out how to get on the subway to head down to Lower Manhattan where we walked around the building construction site for the new World Trade Center (which isn't much to look at as of now), the Dow Jones Building, the American Stock Exchange, the now famous Fire Department next to the WTC, and many other famous buildings we've often heard of but never seen. There was a moving memorial to the many firemen who lost their lives in 9/11 along with a Christmas tree full of ornaments with the pictures of the firefighters who died.

At the end of our walk, we came to the bottom of Lower Manhattan at Battery Park where the ferry leaves for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. There, we saw men dressed up as Lady Liberty (does that qualify as cross-dressing?) with tourists getting their picture taken with them. In line for the ferry, we went through airport like security and had to remove all our layers of winter clothing, which we had to do all over again to go inside the Statue of Liberty monument (no one is allowed inside the actual statue anymore since 9/11, but I had the opportunity to climb those 300 steps eight years ago when I was here with my family). Inside the monument was a museum explaining the plans and process of building the statue, a chronology of the evolution of the symbolism the statue has undertaken (from being a symbol of progress and enlightenment, the subversive desire for liberty among the French people in the late 1800s, and a vision of freedom for the 14 million immigrants who came through Ellis Island from the late 1800s to 1924), and how the statute has been viewed in pop culture over the years. I was personally impressed by the vast amount of planning that was required to build the monument which was the tallest memorial of its kind for over 80s, as well as its inspiration which included the famed Colossus of Rhodes.

Our next ferry took us to Ellis Island, where over 100 million Americans can trace their ancestry. I looked up my own family in the database and found a handful of Bahlers that came through Ellis Island from Switzerland in the late 1800s and early 1900s, one "Christian Bahler" who was most certainly a great-great grandfather of mine (there were about a dozen generations of "Christian Bahlers" in my family line). I was surprised to find out that Ellis Island stood desolate for several decades and wasn't turned into a museum until the late 80's. There still exist dozens of buildings on the island that are in disrepair with "no entry" signs over the boarded windows. I was also amazed by the evolution of the view of immigration that has occurred in America. In 1924, for instance, the "National Origins Act" limited immigration from outside the Western Hemisphere, thereby ensuring that the majority of immigrants to the United States were of European origin rather than from Asia or Africa. Then, in 1939, America refused entry to thousands of Jews trying to flee Nazi Germany. Many of these laws changed in the 1960s and so forth, but it is clear America has a long history of distaste for the "Other" when, ironically, nearly all of us were once immigrants to this land. Interestingly enough, while so many complain about the huge numbers of immigration going on today, it still pales in comparison to the amount of immigration that occurred during the early 1900s. During some years in the teens, over a million immigrants arrived to the American shorelines.

After Ellis Island, we walked back to the Subway, took a picture of the famous "Bull" that stood in front of Wall Street for many years, and then met our friends Ian & Kristy Laidlaw for dinner. After dinner at a great (and spicy) Indian restaurant, we took a long subway trip back to the Bronx. The trip was pretty much uneventful with the exception of one spooky transfer where we had go down steps to another level of the subway where the walls were peeling, the lights were dim, and the floors were extremely dingy.

Now, we're chilling in the room waiting for the snow and sleet to stop. Guess I need to sign off and go get dressed!