Sight-seeing in NYC

Saturday 21st April This weekend we decided to shun our domestic duties (and hang up our baseball boots) and head to NYC for a spot of sight seeing.   The first piece of excitement is that to get to NYC from where we live we had to drive along the New Jersey Turnpike which prompted some Simon & Garfunkel sing-a-longs.  Next piece of excitement was that 38th Street East New York is NOT the same place as 38th Street East Manhattan (according to our sat nav at least) but eventually we sorted that one out.  One upside of the minor detour was that we arrived well after dark and so the views from the Pfizer Suites where we we staying in the 50th floor were pretty amazing - the Empire State Building at night makes a great view. To fit in with G's school project on immigration, and being legal aliens ourselves, we headed to Ellis Island (http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm), an island in New York Harbour through which most immigrants had to pass at the turn of the last century.   The ferry ride to get there first stops at Liberty Island, home to the famous statute, so we got some good views.  Ellis Island itself is quite amazing.  It acted as an immigration centre for USA from approximately 1895 to 1925 and during this time 12.5 million immigrants passed through its doors.   A humbling statistic is that 44% of all US citizens today can trace an ancestor back to someone who came through here, and this also represented the biggest movement of people the world has ever seen.  The immigrants who arrived had paid $25.00 for their round trip (in case they were refused entry) in steerage - anyone travelling in 1st or 2nd class did not have to go to Ellis Island as they were considered to have sufficient personal means to survive.  On arrival they were subject to health checks and a legal test - if failing they were given a second chance but 1% of arrivals were never admitted often splitting up families who had to decide who would stay and who would return.  It puts our day trip to the US Embassy in London in perspective.  Our children were pleased (?!?) to complete the junior ranger quiz as we went around securing National Park badge number 4. By Sunday the weather had turned to the grey drizzly stuff we remembered of old so we were all pleased to meet up with some friends for brunch (http://www.thesmithnyc.com/) - another US habit which we are very quickly getting accustomed to.   We don't know what magic Monica wove but she can come out to eat with us again as G & C have never sat so still in a restaurant before.   We spent a happy afternoon in the Children's Museum of the Arts (http://www.cmany.org/)- making the cartoons was particularly interesting and we all headed home with many new creations.