We finally made it happen! It has been a dream since my children were born to visit the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Sure we have been to the city often enough for concerts and business at the Russian Consulate, but this trip was purely for taking in the city itself.

My original plan was to take a bus down from Boston with my two youngest. I was thinking back to the late 90’s when a cheap bus from Boston to NYC was only $30 per person round trip; well, it’s a bit more now and since we added my oldest son to the other two, the four of us would have cost over $400 to go round trip. Thankfully, mama came to our rescue and offered to road trip it with us. Turns out when you have more than a pair of travelers, it is almost always better to make it a road trip, especially with kids and especially when you have two drivers.

New York City is just under four hours out of Boston with regular traffic. Best time for somewhat regular traffic is early morning. Leaving 6:00am out of Boston brought us to downtown Manhattan by the middle of the morning at 10:30am. Our ferry to the Statue of Liberty was scheduled for noon. Though we arrived early at 11:00am, we decided anyway to go through security. Glad we did because we were able to catch an earlier boat at 11:30am (they did not hold us to the time on the ticket).

The ferry takes us first to Liberty Island. Excitement builds as we get closer and realize Lady Liberty is much larger than we imagined (doesn’t everything in New York leave one with that impression?). Our ticket to the inside of Liberty only allowed us halfway up to the top of the pedestal. Access to the crown is harder to reserve and takes booking it several months in advance. Good news about the pedestal access is that the tickets are plentiful and it was dramatic enough for us. They were still selling tickets for pedestal access today, so it seems on most non-peak days, one can decide last minute to ferry out to the island.

It is hard to take a bad picture of a symbol so triumphant yet graceful, of a lady so maternal yet terrifying. The colorful tapestry of humanity which gathers at her feet on a daily basis testifies that she has not lost the magic celebrated in that immortal poem by Emma Lazarus, A New Colossus:

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!”

With New York’s current challenges under the weight of new, record-breaking immigration, this poem reminds us of our foundation of welcome.

We drop in briefly to Ellis Island, then return to Manhattan by 2:30pm. Mama picks us up with the car she was temporarily parking at a not very desirable place 30 minutes away in Brooklyn. Her original plan was to park a few hours in Brooklyn near a public library where she could stretch a bit and check a few emails. A random search for a public library near downtown landed her at one that kind of doubled as a daytime homeless shelter– Anywhere she might have perched was already occupied by some unsavory characters. A posted officer from the NYPD at the library completed her resolve to look elsewhere for respite. She discovered a nearby shopping center that inexplicably had no common public restrooms; once enough asking had led her to a toilet at Target, she ended up returning to our parked van to rest and prevent any potential smash-and-grabs from local hoodlums.

We were glad to be reunited with our chariot downtown and used it mid-afternoon to see the other sites we came for. A further word about the strength of taking your own car when traveling with kids. Many of us adults can travel lightly when we have to, but kids almost always come with a lot of gear. And when you go to an intense experience like a big city, kids get tired quickly and need a personal space to unwind. Having two drivers solved the problem of what to do with the car. When one of us was with the kids, the other could watch the car.

Now that we were together, we made our way north to Chinatown. I stayed with the car and drove it several times around the block while mama disembarked with kids to a busy looking Chinese take-out place to procure the much desired shrimp lo-mein. This driving around the block is a technique that works particularly well in Manhattan where the streets for the most part run a very predictable grid (the same technique is NOT recommended in a city like Boston where streets radiate from squares like spokes on a wheel). Before long, mama calls me to rendezvous at the spot where I dropped them off.

Satisfied sighs ring out as a I drive further north and everyone digs into their steaming hot noodles and watches the city transition from the lanterns of Chinatown to the pizza parlours of Little Italy and finally to the posh townhouses of 5th Avenue and Mid-town. Our third destination is the famous Park Plaza Hotel in the southeast corner of Central Park. Our kids connect with it for two reasons: It was the filming location for Home Alone 2 and the fictional home of Kay Thompson’s famous picture book series Eloise. Mama minds the car while the kids and I duck into the hotel. It is just as grand as the movie and the book. We snap a few photos and find the restrooms in the back far corner of the basement. In looking for public restrooms in the city, it is always best to find the closest hotel lobby. Never ask any official-looking people where they are lest you prompt the obligatory question, “Are you a registered guest?” Just march in like you own the place and go as far into the hotel as possible (they are never near the entrance). Ask another normal looking person if you have to, but always act like you belong there.

Our final destination is several blocks south where we drive by Times Square, the famous site of America’s New Year’s Eve celebration. My oldest son hangs out the windows and snaps a few stills of an urban landscape in constant flux. Creative and ever distracting videos vi for attention. It is a nice colorful bookend to a very colorful day. At 4:30pm, we begin to drive home and arrive just shy of 10:00pm. We are so thankful for a day in America’s largest and the world’s most diverse city.