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In 1884 the statue was completed and disassembled for shipping to America,
where she arrived in 1885. Once the pedestal was completed, Lady Liberty was
reconstructed over a four month period on what is now called Liberty Island.
Dedicated on October 28,1886, declared a National Monument in 1924, and
proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, the Statue of Liberty has
become an international symbol of democracy and the personal freedoms sought
by people around the world
Tickets are required to
visit the Statue of Liberty and reservations should be made as far in
advance as possible, as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are popular attractions. You can make
reservations only at the official website of the authorized concessioner of
the National Park Service, which can be found
here. The website includes details on accessing the pedestal, museum and crown of the Statue of
Liberty, as well as details on the ferry service to Liberty Island and
Ellis Island. (You can also call 1-877 LADY TIX (1-877 523 9849) for
information on reservations.) All
visitors, regardless of the type of ticket purchased, can visit the Liberty
Island grounds and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are open daily, except for December 25,
but operations are occasionally curtailed due to poor weather.
Pedestal tickets are required to enter any level of
the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Access to the Crown of the Statue of Liberty
was reopened to the public at the end of October 2012. Due to extreme
popularity only advanced reservations can guarantee access to the crown.
You can reserve you visit to include a Crown Ticket. The stair climb to the top
is strenuous and definitely not for the claustrophobic. See this
page
from the National Park Service for more details.
You will need to decide whether to depart for the
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island from Battery Park (once a fortification
and later an immigration center) on the southern tip of Manhattan or from
Liberty State Park in New Jersey. If you choose to depart after 2:00 p.m., from either
port, you will only be able to visit either Liberty Island or Ellis Island,
as there is not time enough to tour both attractions before they close.
(If you depart from the Battery
 , you may see a sculpture with a damaged, large metallic
sphere. The sculpture, by Fritz Koenig, was commissioned for the World
Trade Center. It was recovered after the 9/11 attack and erected in
Battery Park as a memorial.
Luggage, large packages and other large parcels are not
permitted on the ferries or at Liberty or Ellis Island. Those traveling to
either island are subject to a security search and a general delay of
approximately 30 minutes after entering the screening facility before
catching the ferry. The last boat from Liberty Island is at 5 p.m. and from
Ellis Island at 5:15 p.m.
See the National
Park Service website for
the Statue of Liberty for many interesting details on the Statue, as well as
visiting Liberty Island.
Ellis Island witnessed the immigration of over 12 million people between
1892 and 1954, when its operations ceased and the facility closed, initiating
what became
a long period of neglect.
The island’s Main Building was restored and opened as a
three-floor museum in 1990 as the National Museum of Immigration. Its
American Family Immigration History Center contains the manifests of over 25
million immigrants, passengers and crews of passenger ships that entered the
United States via New York Harbor between 1892 and 1924. While visiting
Ellis Island you can search their databases on site. You can also
search them online
here.
You can take a self-guided tour, although free Ranger guided tours are
offered every 45 minutes throughout the day. Audio tours are also available
for a modest fee. The Movie “Island of Hope, Island of Tears” contains clips
of immigrants describing their experiences at Ellis Island.
An interesting piece of history about Ellis
Island is that a portion of the landfill used to expand the original
three-acre island to its current twenty- seven acre size came from the
excavations of the New York Subway tunnels. Other sources of fill were
ballast from the freighters the carried many of the immigrants to America.
Ellis Island is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. See the
official National Park Service Website for
Ellis Island
for more details on visiting. As noted above, you will need to work
with Statue Cruises (the official Concessioner of the National Park Service
to reserve
tickets for your visit.
If you need information about another travel destination, try
our
Destination Guide Index
or Googling ThereArePlaces.
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