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Next on the NYC tour was a trip out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  You depart on ferries from this Ferry/Train station in New Jersey.  Decades earlier, this was a major commuter and passenger station for anyone living in NJ and taking ferries to NYC.  It also served as the starting point for most of the immigrants coming from Ellis Island.  The were each given $30 for train faire and dropped off here.  It was a 3 H day in NYC according to the bus driver, Hot, Humid, Hazy so this terminal had thick brick wall and cool air conditioning, we did not mind waiting a while for the next boat.

This is the main building at Ellis Island.  There are a couple dozen buildings but more are very run down and not usable.  This one has been re-done very nicely into a great museum covering the world of the immigrants that came through here and the growth of America via immigrants in general.

We thought this was an interesting board at Ellis Island showing "immigration" via the slave trade.  Of all the Africans brought to North and South America, only 5.8% were sent to the US.  American history that we and the kids had did not indicate that there was so much more slavery in other parts of the "new world" with the vast majority for the British, French and Portuguese.

You can really see the hot haze in my pictures of the NYC skyline from the deck of the ferry to the Status of Liberty.

Since shortly after 9/11 they started to only allow 3000 people a day to enter ANY part of the Statue of Liberty, including the base that houses the museum.  You have to get your reservations far in advance, which we did not know about, so all we could really do here is walk around the island.  The rangers were very adamant that the 3000 person restriction have nothing to do with terrorism and that it was a fire code issue, that just happened to come up at 9/11.

New Jersey is called the garden state for some weird reason.  You can see how lush and green the grounds are the the campground we stared at.  It was by far the closest to the city and we only stayed there a couple of night, so it did the job.  When we first arrived we pulled up through some narrow shady looking streets of Jersey City to find the final 50 yards blocked by 15 police and SWAT vehicles.  After waiting a awhile, enough cleared out that we got into the campground.  It was then that we learned that the had a small riot (50-80 people) at the ferry station across the street from the campground.   Sleep tight kids...

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