Third day in New York, devoted to Lower Manhattan and its history. On the programme: the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and its abandoned hospitals, Wall Street, the 9/11 Memorial, then Little Italy in the evening. It’s also the day we change hotels, moving to the SpringHill Suites by Marriott, still in Chelsea.
Bagels and the ferry from Battery Park
American breakfast with bagels, then the subway down to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. We booked the Hard Hat Tour ticket: it combines access to Liberty Island with a guided tour of the old Ellis Island hospitals. With the e-ticket you go straight to security, a bit like at the airport, before boarding. Tip: only buy from the official site, Statue City Cruises (City Experiences).
Walking around Liberty Island
We walk around the island. One viewpoint on the Statue of Liberty follows another, with the Manhattan skyline on one side and New Jersey on the other. We didn’t have time for the pedestal or the crown, which need booking weeks or even months ahead: we preferred to keep time for Ellis Island.
Ellis Island and the Hard Hat Tour
A second ferry takes us to Ellis Island. Between 1892 and 1954, more than 12 million immigrants passed through here, many of them Italian, Irish, German and Polish. The great hall of the Immigration Museum, with its period suitcases, is very moving.
The Hard Hat Tour, helmet on, takes you inside the hospital complex abandoned since 1954 and only recently opened to the public: treatment rooms, kitchens, laundry, morgue, isolation wards… You even see the “cage” where contagious patients could get fresh air while staying isolated. Guided visits only, and for me one of the most memorable moments of the trip.
On the way back, the ferry sails along Manhattan in the November mist. That’s where I took my favourite photo of the skyline, with my old iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Wall Street, the Bull and Trinity Church
Back on dry land, we walk through the Financial District. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), impossible not to think of The Wolf of Wall Street, then Kristen Visbal’s Fearless Girl, a symbol of gender equality. The queue in front of the Charging Bull was so long that I skipped it. At the end of Wall Street, Trinity Church and its historic churchyard, a neo-Gothic church among the towers.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum
We pass at the foot of One World Trade Center, the tallest skyscraper in the United States, before reaching the 9/11 Memorial on the site of the Twin Towers.
The museum beneath the memorial is visited in silence. You see the Slurry Wall, the retaining wall that held, the Last Column, the final steel beam removed from the rubble and covered with the badge numbers of fallen firefighters and police officers, the Survivors’ Staircase, the FDNY Ladder Company 3 truck, and Virgil’s words: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time”.
The Oculus, Little Italy and the Empire State Building
When we come out, it’s dark. We walk through the Oculus, the all-white World Trade Center station and shopping hall, then head up to Little Italy. Mulberry Street is beautifully decorated in Italian colours, but the area isn’t very authentic any more (we’ll see the real one, in the Bronx, a few days later). Dinner at Jose Luis: pasta all’arrabbiata and calamari.
One last surprise on the way back: on this 10 November, the Empire State Building is lit in white and red for Polish Independence Day. We can see it from our room at the SpringHill Suites.
Also on Instagram that day
Practical info
- Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tickets: only on the official Statue City Cruises site (City Experiences). The Hard Hat Tour must be booked ahead, guided visits only.
- Ferries leave from Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan. Security check before boarding.
- Statue pedestal and crown: book several weeks or months in advance.
- 9/11 Museum: allow at least two hours.
- Hotel: SpringHill Suites by Marriott New York Manhattan/Chelsea.