The Intern Team Visits New York City
By admin. Filed in Conference Tour 2009 |Tags: Trips and Fun
Sea of Faces
Josh Craddock
September 5 – 6, 2009
Our first stop on our two-day tour of New York City wasn’t even in New York. Ellis Island, where more than twelve million immigrants were processed through its facilities, is primarily located in the state of New Jersey! This was an especially exciting part of our tour for our team, since several of us had relatives who had immigrated to the United States through this very island. KatieMac found several of her relative’s names inscribed on the Wall of Honor. KatieAnne told the story of her great-grandfather who was marked with a chalk “X” (indicating that he was inadmissible to America for health reasons) and who turned his coat inside out to conceal the mark, allowing him to enter the country. I was even able to find one of my relatives who had come over from Germany in the record database!
Getting back on the ferry, we floated on over to Liberty Island – home of the famed Statue of Liberty. We climbed all one hundred and seventy-six steps to the observation deck so that we could look out on the expansive city across the harbor! The view was breathtaking.
We spent the next day in the city itself. Walking down the streets of New York City’s Manhattan borough, we managed to avoid being trampled by the masses and tasted the delicious experience that is the Big Apple! Our group started beneath the Brooklyn Bridge and worked our way on foot past Federal Hall, where on the steps of the first capital of the United States under the Constitution, George Washington took the Oath of Office.
Following Wall Street, we saw the New York Stock Exchange and Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton and William Bradford are buried (and where, more recently, the popular movie National Treasure was filmed). We finally reached Castle Clinton, an old fortress built for the War of 1812 and later turned into an immigration processing station.
Turning back to the North, we worked our way back past the World Trade Center ground zero. The empty hole in the New York skyline was chilling, but the unbreakable spirit of the American people was evident all around the site.
We were starting to get hungry, so we navigated our way through the masses towards Chinatown, an area rich with culture, new sights, sounds, and smells. After passing through Chinatown, we visited Little Italy and upon seeing an Italian grocery store, we decided to get fresh rolls, cheese, and salami and eat them in the park. What a great place for a picnic! Our stomachs having been satisfied, we jumped on the metro and got off at the Empire State Building and the world’s largest store – Macy’s!
Somehow we managed to pull the girls back to the Metro so that we could visit Grand Central Terminal (the largest train station in the world in terms of platforms). We finally took the Metro to Central Park – an urban jungle in the midst of the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan.
The entire team had dinner at a ‘50s diner before taking an evening walk through Times Square. Everyone enjoyed seeing the lights of the city against the night sky.
All in all, the team enjoyed the city tremendously. Most of us decided that we wouldn’t like to live there, but that it sure was a nice place to visit. I can’t wait for my next trip back!
