The first time I saw the Statue of Liberty it was from a Boeing 747 that was circling New York Harbor in preparation for landing at Newark International Airport. It was my maiden voyage from the Golden State to the East Coast that I first drank in the magnificence of Lady Liberty.
The Statue of Liberty and the enlightenment she represents congers up an overwhelming sense of pride in my heart for all the freedoms America has long fought for. I still remember growing up on the west coast and learning about her in school. It was a copper monument and American symbol that I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be seeing one day for myself.
That all changed in 1990, on that jet plane flying low for landing. Within months of settling in, my family and I took the ferry to see the statue up close and personal. It was a wickedly hot and humid summer day. We waited for hours in line to ascend the spiral staircase to the crown, soon to reopen (July 4 weekend).
Recently, upon learning that the man in my life, Harrison, born in the Tri-State area has never been to the Statue of Liberty, or Ellis Island, I booked tickets. For his birthday gift, this California gal took this New Jersey lad to visit these historical landmarks.
In the “Through America’s Gate,” exhibit, there was a photo of a woman in the middle of the street covering the entire wall that was especially hard to turn from, so I took a picture. The caption reported that the picture was of an Italian immigrant woman carrying piece work home, Lower East side, 1909. Another woman patron, Barbara Parlegreco, also seemed mesmerized by the photo and we started conversing. Barbara told me that she liked the photo so much that she had taken a digital picture, blew it up, and put it on the wall in her bedroom! I understood.
While walking through the maze of memorabilia, Harrison and I came across another caption that stopped me in my tracks. “The day I left home, my mother came with me to the railroad station. When we said good-bye she said it was just like seeing me go into my casket. I never saw her again,” Julia Goniprow, a Lithuanian immigrant in 1899, quoted in Morrison and Zabusky, American Mosaic, E.P. Dutton, 1980.
Pulling away from the dock I realized I was leaving with a greater appreciation of the land of the free and the home of the brave, than I’d arrived with.
The Statue of Liberty and the enlightenment she represents congers up an overwhelming sense of pride in my heart for all the freedoms America has long fought for. I still remember growing up on the west coast and learning about her in school. It was a copper monument and American symbol that I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be seeing one day for myself.
That all changed in 1990, on that jet plane flying low for landing. Within months of settling in, my family and I took the ferry to see the statue up close and personal. It was a wickedly hot and humid summer day. We waited for hours in line to ascend the spiral staircase to the crown, soon to reopen (July 4 weekend).
Recently, upon learning that the man in my life, Harrison, born in the Tri-State area has never been to the Statue of Liberty, or Ellis Island, I booked tickets. For his birthday gift, this California gal took this New Jersey lad to visit these historical landmarks.
In the “Through America’s Gate,” exhibit, there was a photo of a woman in the middle of the street covering the entire wall that was especially hard to turn from, so I took a picture. The caption reported that the picture was of an Italian immigrant woman carrying piece work home, Lower East side, 1909. Another woman patron, Barbara Parlegreco, also seemed mesmerized by the photo and we started conversing. Barbara told me that she liked the photo so much that she had taken a digital picture, blew it up, and put it on the wall in her bedroom! I understood.
While walking through the maze of memorabilia, Harrison and I came across another caption that stopped me in my tracks. “The day I left home, my mother came with me to the railroad station. When we said good-bye she said it was just like seeing me go into my casket. I never saw her again,” Julia Goniprow, a Lithuanian immigrant in 1899, quoted in Morrison and Zabusky, American Mosaic, E.P. Dutton, 1980.
Pulling away from the dock I realized I was leaving with a greater appreciation of the land of the free and the home of the brave, than I’d arrived with.
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