New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [18]
Fodor’s Choice | Ellis Island.
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. The island’s main building, now a national monument, reopened in 1990 as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, which is divided into four major exhibit areas with numerous galleries containing artifacts, photographs, and taped oral histories. The centerpiece of the museum is the white-tile Registry Room (also known as the Great Hall). It feels dignified and cavernous today, but photographs show that it took on a multitude of configurations through the years, always packed with humanity undergoing one form or another of screening. While you’re there, take a look out the Registry Room’s tall, arched windows and try to imagine what passed through immigrants’ minds as they viewed Lower Manhattan’s skyline to one side and the Statue of Liberty to the other. Because there’s so much to take in, it’s a good idea to make use of the museum’s interpretive tools. Check at the visitor desk for free film tickets, ranger tour times, and special programs. The audio tour is worth its $8 price: it takes you through the exhibits, providing thorough, engaging commentary interspersed with recordings of immigrants themselves recalling their experiences. Along with the Registry Room, the museum’s features include the ground-level Railroad Ticket Office, which has several interactive exhibits and a three-dimensional graphic representation of American immigration patterns; the American Family Immigration History Center, where you can search Ellis Island’s records for your own ancestors (for a $5 fee); and, outside, the American Immigrant Wall of Honor, where the names of more than 700,000 immigrant Americans are inscribed along a promenade facing the Manhattan skyline. (For $150 you can add a family member’s name to the wall.) | 212/363–3200 Ellis Island, 212/561–4500 Wall of Honor information | www.ellisisland.org | Free | 877/523–9849 ferry, $12 round-trip | www.statuecruises.com | Daily 9–5:15, extended hrs in summer (current hrs online at www.nps.gov/elis/planyourvisit/hours.xhtml.
Federal Hall National Memorial.
It’s a museum now, but this site has a most notable claim: George Washington was sworn in here as the first president of the United States in 1789, when the building was Federal Hall of the new nation. When the city lost capital rights to Philadelphia in 1790, Federal Hall reverted to New York’s City Hall, then was demolished in 1812 when the present City Hall was completed. The museum within covers 400 years of New York City’s history, with a focus on the life and times of what is now the city’s Financial District. You can spot this building easily—it was modeled on the Parthenon, and a statue of George Washington is planted quite obtrusively on the steps. | 26 Wall St., at Nassau St., Lower Manhattan | 10005 | 212/825–6990 | www.nps.gov/feha | Free | Weekdays 9–5 | Subway: 1, 4, 5, N, R to Rector; 2, 3 to Wall St.; J, Z to Broad St.
Governors Island.
If visiting from May to October, take a quick ferry ride over to this charming park—which looks like a small New England town—popular with locals for its bike and running trails, festivals, art shows, concerts, and family programs. Wouter Van Twiller, a representative for Holland, supposedly purchased the island for his private use in 1637 from Native Americans for two ax heads, a string of beads, and a handful of nails. It was confiscated by the Dutch a year later, and for the next decade its ownership switched back and forth between the Dutch and British until the Brits gained firm control of it in the 1670s. The island was officially named in 1784 for “His Majesty’s Governors”, and was used by the American military until the 1960s, when