It's episode 7 on the New York City Vlog and today we're gonna go to the Statue
of Liberty and Ellis Island! We take the ferry tour with the national park service.
I'm gonna show you everything you need to know if you're planning to visit.
The best experience is you take the subway around town
and you just never know what it's going to look like when you come up above ground.
We're at the white hall stop close to the very end of manhattan for the Statue of Liberty
When we got off the subway we were a little disoriented but I knew that the
water was close to the park so we headed in that general direction and tried to find our way.-
and by the way this beautiful building to our right this is the National Museum of
the American Indian -this looks like a fabulous place to visit it was closed during our stay.
This little building in front of us this is the Bowling Green subway stop now this
would have been the closest subway stop to the statue of liberty cruise station
we saw the ferry over to the left but the main entrance was over to the right and it
was a security building similar to TSA at the airport we got our tickets in advance
they said to arrive 30 minutes early and to expect large crowds we really didn't need to
be that early and we could have bought our tickets on site there were no long lines
there's a security check for the statue of liberty ferry just so you know and if you happen to bring
mace like i do they're not gonna have a place to store it for you i was allowed to stash it
in a bush outside but uh just keep that in mind if you travel with something like that
can't bring it on the ferry we ended up being probably an hour early because we
weren't really sure where we were going and they let us go ahead and board the next ferry
so france gave us this statue because france aided america and we're always the world war
without francis help we would have lost to the british
be sure to note that statue city cruises is the only legitimate cruise company that takes you
out to the statue of liberty the website warns you that there's lots of scammers
that will try to approach you outside the ticket area to try to sell you fake tickets
here's what to expect on the ferry so there are seats on top and there's seats on two different
levels if you get seasick you might want to bring some dramamine i think it's a short ride
but it is you know kind of wobbly if there's any rain you are going to have wet seats on the top
so people like me and my son who get carsick and motion sick we want to be on top but all
the seats are soaking wet um so your feet hurt you may want to bring like a waterproof rain jacket or
something to wipe off the seat there are restrooms in here and there's also a snack bar on here
plenty of room
this is america's symbol of freedom right here
windy freedom
it's a lovely rod it is windy and rainy it's always colder on the water so bring
a jacket when you come unless it's like middle of a heat wave then maybe you don't need one but
you can expect it to be a little cooler out here because it's real windy on the water
there's a place to eat exactly you can't go on top inside statue of liberty right now
because of covered but um the island isn't open thumbs up for the statue of liberty thank you
there's a big patio area the beautiful view of the city there's a museum there's a gift shop
refreshments all here on and out it's not ellis island almost at ellis island it's liberty island
so between the wind and the construction i don't know if you're going to be able to hear me but
underneath the statue of liberty is actually a fort that was built to protect the new york harbor
and is shaped like a star with 11 points the fort was built between 1808 and 1811. so it's been
here quite a while it's a very historic site you can see it behind me but it's under construction
so if you watch any of those conspiracy theories on tv about the freemasons they say there are
several masonic symbols around the base of the fort and in the grass area in the on the ground
so whatever you think about that you're welcome to leave me a comment below
this is one of the biggest seagulls i've seen in a long time he's hungry
and this is the photo spot right in front we're here on a monday in june so these
are the kind of crowds you can expect here but there's plenty of space for everybody
so here's where you can enter if it was not under construction i think
the combination of kovid they probably took the opportunity to shut it down and do construction
at the same time but they have another set of turnstiles here to enter
now we're going to hit up the visitors center in the gift shop there's also plenty of tables
and a nice park area if you wanted to sit and bring a picnic lunch if it was a lovely day
there's trees and shade it would be a really nice place to come and sit and eat some lunch
you get hungry on liberty island like me there is a cafeteria-style restaurant and they do take your
temperature and want you to check in for contact tracing when you arrive and it's a pretty long
wait so you're going to want to allow some time but you're going to want to spend some time here
so i don't want to get hangry there is a turkey on a statue along with a hamburger
after a nice lunch we head over to the statue of liberty museum
it's a 10 minute movie and they only let a very small
amount of people in so the line at the entrance is for the movie
this is the artist that created the statue of liberty
this is an interesting pictorial history of how the statue of liberty was used over the years
for various propaganda or you know political statements
or you know the different things that it's symbolized
you realize
this is the plaque and it's hard to see because of the reflection it was a gift from the people
of the republic of france to the people of the united states this statue of liberty enlighting
the world commemorates the alliance of the two nations in achieving the independence
of the united states of america and attest their abiding friendship
october 28 1886 it was inaugurated
wow here you can come get your photo with the torch or the face
we spent about two hours on the island and we really took our time and we sat down
and had something to eat as well and the ferry leaves every 20 minutes between liberty island
ellis island and new york city battery park so now we're headed over to ellis island
ellis island is a federally owned island and between the years of 1892 to 1924 ellis island
processed nearly 12 million immigrants the main building is the national museum of immigration
and on the south side it includes the old hospital area and it's only open for guided tours
you're lucky enough to be here when the sun comes out boy it warms up real fast
so we are now pulling into ellis island
thank you
this is the registry room that could hold up to 5 000 people who were waiting
on their status to be inspected and registered by immigration service officers
it has been restored to its appearance of what it used to look like between 1918 and 1924
one of the most astounding exhibits that we looked at was regarding the health care
the doctors on site had nearly six seconds to evaluate each immigrant as they passed through
to look for various diseases and determine if they were healthy enough to pass the health screening
if you were marked with an x you had further questioning
so you can actually come here and do a search for immigration records of your own family members
so before i had kids i was very fascinated in ancestry and researching my ancestry so i
would have loved to have spent time in that gallery researching our relatives that came
over however i was not prepared i didn't bring my notes on the names of my ancestors
they said that you have to put your name in and reserve a time slot and it's a ten dollar fee
to use the station for research so if that's something you want to do i would
plan ahead and bring some names with you and whatever information you have and then you can
find the records and then of course you can pay to have them printed and saved for you so
that's like a whole trip in and of itself to come out here and do some real records
digging to find all of our ancestors that came over to america so that's pretty cool
on the back side of the museum there's beautiful views of new york city and there's this big round
wall that goes around the perimeter and it has the names of all the immigrants written on there
see if you can find your family members on here okay folks that concludes the three-hour tour
where are my gilligan and xylen fans the three yeah we're tour we did a three-hour tour i believe
a 911 museum and a three-hour tour of the statue of liberty we kind of cut alice island short
there's an immigration museum we didn't stay there as long as we probably should have but we have a
tired family and we want to hit up the brooklyn bridge later so um you know if you really want to
spend a thorough amount of time in ellis island i would recommend planning a little bit longer time
now it's food brooklyn bridge it's gonna get spiderman you're gonna film this day
i had to film the subway wrap it's a real thing it's kind of cute