Statue of Liberty and Lincoln Center, June 2009

Our visitor (the teenaged daughter of our close friend out in the Midwest) stayed with us through last Monday night. On Tuesday, I drove her down to New York City to meet up with her aunt, who hosted her for the rest of the week before she headed home on Saturday.

Originally, we considered seeing some sights in the city, and possibly having dinner in Chinatown. However, when I was considering those plans, I had neglected to take her luggage into account. I needed some sightseeing that we could park at easily.

Thus, the Statue of Liberty. We could park at Liberty State Park in Jersey City to take the ferry over to see the Statue, and then move the car over to the Liberty State Park park/ride lot on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail to make our way into the City.

We passed by the Liberty Science Center at the entrance to Liberty State Park.

We didn't have time to visit the museum on this trip, but I've been there a few times before. It's got a fun set of exhibits, as well as an IMAX theater facility.

The next thing we got to see at Liberty State Park was the old rail terminal building .

The ferry tickets to Liberty Island and Ellis Island are purchased inside this building, which was once one of the major rail hubs in the Northeast.

The train platforms are now overgrown with vegetation.

The rail terminal building also houses the security checkpoint that visitors pass through before boarding the ferry. After driving down from Massachusetts, we arrived around 2 PM. If you arrive early enough, you can get a ticket to enter the Statue of Liberty, including a limited number of tickets for access to the crown. We were way too late for either option, but the security and ferry boarding lines were short and moved very smoothly for us.

Here's our ferry, Miss New Jersey. These ferries were built in the early 1980s in my grandparents' home town of Warren RI.

Here is the view of the Jersey City skyline from the ferry dock.

On the Jersey side of the Hudson is the Colgate Clock, a 50-foot clock that has stood on the Jersey City waterfront since 1924. It marks the site where the Colgate-Palmolive factory and headquarters stood until the 1980s.

We were soon underway, with a spectacular view of New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, Jersey City, and Brooklyn.

Liberty Island came into view.

I like this shot with the flag flying on the west end of Liberty Island.

Before going to see the Statue of Liberty, our ferry docked at Ellis Island.

Here is one of the other ferries at the dock at Ellis Island.

Ellis Island was a major immigration processing facility, and the main building has been beautifully restored.

This building now houses an extensive museum of immigration.

Here's the flag flying on Ellis Island with Manhattan in the background.

The other buildings on Ellis Island are closed to the public, but feature much of the same classic architecture.

We were short on time, so we stayed on the boat and crossed over to Liberty Island.

We took a slow walk around Liberty Island and got a good up-close look at Lady Liberty. I'll let the pictures do the talking for a bit here:

We had some lovely views of the traffic on New York Harbor as well, including this sailboat.

And, of course the "Best Free Ride In New York", the Staten Island Ferry.

We grabbed burgers at the Liberty Island snack bar, and then caught the ferry back to Liberty State Park. We had to meet my guest's aunt on her dinner break, and it was time to head into the city.

We took the Hudson Bergen Light Rail to Hoboken, the Path train to 34th St., and then the New York Subway to Columbus Circle.

The woman we were going to meet does lighting work backstage at Lincoln Center for the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera.

She took us on a backstage tour, where we watched some of the dancers rehearsing from up in the rafters. We got to see the Lincoln Center complex from the theater roof.

My guest got to stick around and watch the show, but I had to get on the road back to New England. It was nice to get back to the New York City area, if only for a day, and we had lovely weather for some spectacular sightseeing.