The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus, 1883
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
When Hannah and Eva were visiting us, we went to Liberty Island to see Lady Liberty a bit closer than just passing by on the Staten Island Ferry like we have done before. It was really neat to be able to see some more detail and to be able to go up into the pedestal.
When you see her in the distance, she looks so small, but when you get close she is really pretty imposing!
And when something is imposing, that means of course that you have do some posing!
Esther did some walking practice but she’s still not walking!
And a token family photo.
This little ratbag sure cutes me out!
We went through 2 airport-style security checks that day (our annoyance levels were pretty high by the end of the second one!) but eventually got to go up into the pedestal. There was a little museum in there about her history. I won’t tell you about all that now, instead I’ll just show you some pictures. :-)
Esther crawling back into history:
Marica sitting on an actual sized replica of the Lady’s foot:
Manhattan taken from the pedestal. The building under construction that’s about the height of those around it already is the One World Trade Centre that they are rebuilding. And it’s only about halfway done! Another blog post coming on that soon.
And you can even see the Empire State Building and midtown in the distance.
Brooklyn from the pedestal. We live pretty close to that distinct building in the middle.
What the Lady looks like on the inside:
Maybe this is what Lady Liberty would look like if she were your mother and you were a little toddler?
I guess you seldom see The Lady’s back, so I’ll leave you with something a little different.
Comments (4)
Marica’s sure a pro at that pose…perfectly matched angle of their right arm! (Maybe next halloween you could dye an old sheet for her to trail around in.) Love Esther’s matching aqua coat in the photo of her “walking.” And the one of her crawling into history. I tried several times to get photos of either of them in that museum, but they had usually moved by the time my flash was ready to go off. Should organize my photos (and delete all the blurry duplicates).
Thanks for the photos of one of our most cherished national symbols. When we were there, they were doing some repairs and construction so we couldn’t go up inside her.
Brrr. I semi-forgot how chilly it was that day. We’re all bundled up!
I never tire of seeing The Statue of Liberty or going to Ellis Island! It is such an adventure and I can imagine I am on a ship coming over from some far off land and imagine how it felt to be an immigrant in the turn of the last century!:)