Happy Independence Day

There is a reason why tourists do tourist things -- they are fun! For all the times Jim and I have been in New York, we had never done the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. We did both this week and they were very interesting. I never knew that Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) designed the interior structure that holds up the State of Liberty. Nor did I realize that it was the tallest structure in New York City when it was erected.

Ellis Island is the only island in the USA owned by two states -- New York and New Jersey. New York owns the part where the Reception Center is and New Jersey owns all of the island created over the years by landfill (the area where the hospital ruins are located, for example) because New Jersey owned the seabed where the landfill was placed. All of which was decided as recently as 1998 by a Supreme Court case. They should have settled the dispute the same way they determined the ownership of Staten Island, with a sailboat race.

Staten Island has been an interesting stop. It is very much a typical suburb with tree lined streets and kids riding their bikes up and down the street, but it has all of the local small shops you find tucked away in the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Two days ago I got a fantastic Italian sandwich at a gas station store.

Last night we went to the official Staten Island fireworks show, brought to you by the Borough President. From the park of the southeastern shore of the island, we could see four other fireworks shows going on at the same time across the Lower Bay in New Jersey.

The best entertainment of the evening, however, was not the fireworks but NYPD's finest trying to direct traffic when the fireworks were over. We had gotten to the event on a city bus, so we were waiting at the bus stop in front of the park as the hundreds and hundreds of people were leaving. Six cops were directing the traffic and not a one of them had any reflective gear on, no lighted batons, and no plan for what they were doing. Each cop seemed to be making his own decisions. We saw cops direct cars into lines of pedestrians who had been told to go, we saw cops try to direct lines of traffic into each other, we saw pedestrians decide to cross in front of an emergency vehicle coming down the main street and the cops do nothing. It was absolute chaos, truly a miracle no one was killed and no accidents happened.

Tonight, like the rest of America, we'll watch the New York fireworks on television. We have tried for three days to figure out if there is a place on Staten Island where you can go to see the fireworks without having to leave the island. The answer appears to be no. While I'd happily go to Manhattan and mingle with the crowds, the last launch from the yacht club dock back to our boat is at 11:45 PM and we couldn't be assured of making it home in time to get back to the boat.