The Big Apple Ferry Tale Park Hop!

More 2018 Adventures

Newark, NJ → New York City, NY → Morris Plains, NJ
86.2 mi (138.7 km)

Start spreading the news, everyone!

Like the city, this beaver never sleeps, at least on red-eye flights to the East Coast. I touched down in Newark at 6:00 in the morning for a long weekend culminating in the Long Island wedding of my buddies, Turbo and Jess-Do-It! My goal for the day was to explore the remaining national monuments of the Big Apple, which would turn out to be a big city ferry tale!

The adventure kicked off at the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal in Liberty State Park. This terminal transported millions of passengers a year, many of them fresh immigrants, between 1889 and 1967. Today, I would be experiencing the immigrant’s arrival in reverse!

I boarded the 800-passenger Miss New Jersey at 9:00 to head to two super important islands in New York Harbor, not realizing that the stops were in reverse order! Instead of going right to the Statue of Liberty, we pulled over at Ellis Island, the place where over 12 million immigrants arrived in the US between 1892 and 1954!

Ellis Island is shaped like a horseshoe, with the immigration museum on the north, where folks can look up their ancestors’ arrival papers, and the hospital to the south, where sick or delayed immigrants had to wait until they were deemed fit to enter the States. The hospital has not been restored inside and requires a special tour to visit, so I headed into the museum to learn what I could about the immigrant experience!

Nearly 5,000 people a day filed through the Registry Room on the second floor, where they were checked for visible illnesses and moved on for psychological evaluation, paper inspection, and if necessary, further hearings. Today, there are volunteers on staff who will actually check out visitors to see if they would be allowed past!

At the time, 98% of folks were allowed to enter the country, compared to the latest rate of 91% (2016). These numbers went down in 1921 and 1924 when Congress passed Acts limiting immigration flows to 3%, then 2%, of each nation’s representation in the US population. The goal was to limit arrivals by Southern and Eastern Europeans, and particularly the Jews among them. Those who made it to the Jersey shore in time were the lucky ones!

Those who were under extra scrutiny, for political reasons or to sort out contract laborers, got a yellow card that read “S.I.” for “Special Inquiry” and had to undergo special hearings here in this room. Between 50 and 100 hearings a day would take place here!

The folks who were stuck waiting for hearings, decisions, or other clearances had to sleep in dormitories around the Registration Room. Each room featured three levels of really uncomfortable wire cots and could house 300 detainees! After renovations in 1924, though, some families were able to get private rooms.

One of the highlights of this immigration museum for me was the Treasures from Home exhibit, which featured special possessions donated by families of some of the immigrants who passed through these walls. There were cultural clothes, musical instruments, jewelry, ceramics, and more, which painted a picture of what items from the homeland were important enough to bring to the new one. All I had when I arrived here was a hat, but that was on the other coast.

Having wandered the museum for a few hours, I jumped on the next ferry to head back in chronology to a sign of great hope for new arrivals: the Statue of Liberty! Officially named “The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World,” this 305-foot New Colossus was a gift to the U.S. of A from France, in honor of the American centennial and long-running friendship with the French! Today, with the new museum under construction and the inside tours fully booked up, it was a great place to wander and check out the statue from different angles below. Fittingly, after my recalculations, this national monument was my real 100th national park unit! Hooray!

After an hour strolling Liberty Island, I hopped on the next ferry to New York’s Battery Park, home to the next national park unit on my whirlwind tour: Castle Clinton National Monument!

Named for New York Mayor, Dewitt Clinton, this castle was originally built to defend against British invasion during the War of 1812, but never saw battle! It was repurposed many times, first as an opera house and theater (where Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, made her American debut), then as an immigrant processing center, and even as the New York Aquarium!

Today, this cake-shaped castle is a ticketing and visitor center for the National Parks of New York Harbor. There aren’t a whole lot of exhibits to see, but it does have a neat story! When I stamped my passport in the visitor center, though, I received an ominous warning: the guy at the register didn’t believe that the ferry to Governors Island National Monument was running on weekdays. Oh no! I hustled east across Battery Park to the terminal to see if that was true.

I was in luck! The ferry was running, and I was just in time for the one at 2:00 PM! A short motor across the harbor, and I was shore to run around for an hour and a half. Here’s what I saw!

Like Castle Clinton, Castle Williams was built to defend New York Harbor, and was actually the prototype for this form of defense! It guarded against the British during the War of 1812 and served as a prison for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War!

Just uphill stood the star-shaped Fort Jay, which preceded Castle Williams by about a decade. Previously, it had been a simple earthen defense, but since the British occupied it during the Revolution the state of New York said “Never again!” and got to work fortifying it. The fort then received a new name for John Jay, governor of New York!

Beyond the two defense structures that make up the national monument, there’s a whole island of picnic space, playgrounds, and art installations that could take up an entire day of explorations, but alas, I had to get back to the ferry in time to make it to my final national park site of the day.

A half-hour subway ride uptown, I arrived at the Ulysses S. Grant National Memorial, the largest mausoleum in the United States. After all the day’s running around, this quiet space would be perfect for concluding a day’s adventures. Inside, below the grand dome, were maps and mosaics portraying the victories of the general-president. At the center, recessed below the main floor, President Grant and his wife, Julia, lay in giant stone sarcophagi, surrounded by quiet. It was humbling to walk around them and pay respects, but the time quickly came for the memorial, and today’s adventure, to close.

So, having now seen all the national monuments of New York, I set off to find some tasty New York pizza and plan tomorrow’s adventures across the river in New Jersey!

My vagabond shoes are longing to stray!