Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Monday was a BUSY day!
We bought some of the first tickets available that day on the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island.

Looking forward from the ferry was Lady Liberty. Beautiful!!!
(For size perspective, notice the little dots on the shore line near the bottom. Those are people.)

Looking back was the New York shore line. Also beautiful!

The number of visitor they allow daily into both the crown at the top and the pedestal & museum at the bottom are very limited. If you don't plan and buy tickets quite a bit in advance, you don't get to go inside. We fell into this category. However, we were still able to purchase a wonderful audio tour that was so informative and led us on a walk all around the statue.

These birds are so used to all the people. They were just lined up on a little pier jutting out from the island. People were all around, but they were totally uninterested and unaffected by all the bustle.

After leaving Liberty Island, we took the ferry to Ellis Island. Again, we purchased an audio tour. Though the boys had learned quite a bit about Ellis Island in their Social Studies classes at school, it was still quite an eye opener learning about everything the immigrants went through to be accepted into this country. And it was heartbreaking to hear stories of those who were sent back for various reasons. I don't think any of us will forget what we saw & heard here.

"Between 1892 and 1924, approximately 12 million men, women, and children first set foot on U.S. soil at the Ellis Island federal immigration facility. By the time the facility closed in 1954, it had processed ancestors of more than 40% of Americans living today." (Fodor's New York City 2012.)

Outside the center is the American Immigrant Wall of Honor, where the names of more than 700,000 immigrant Americans are inscribed.
Garrett wanted to see if he could find any of his ancestors listed there. Breit is not a common name, and he did find a few.