Saturday, August 4, 2007

The Staten Island Ferry



In the spirit of trying to do and see things that are on my NYC list I joined my friend Emily and her friend Gibby who was in town visiting on Friday for a trip on the Staten Island Ferry. We have half-day Fridays so the three of us went to get lunch at Subway (yum!) and then walked over to the ferry landing. When we got there there were literally hundreds of people waiting for the next ferry. I was finding it hard to believe that we were all going to get on the ferry - little did I know how big the ferry was.

Everyone moved very calmly onto the ferry and we got a great spot outside on the lefthand side of the ferry. As we took off you could see Ellis Island straight out to you left and Governor's Island out ahead. As we kept moving towards SI, we went past the Statue of Liberty. I'm sorry - but no matter how many times you've seen our Lady Liberty it is still awe-inspiring! So like all the other tourists I snapped some great pics of both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and then we sat down and ate our lunch. It was nice and cool even outside on the boat - there was a great breeze which was refreshing!

When we got to Staten Island you have to get off and walk around and get back on with everyone else waiting to get on. So we did that and then manuevered our way to the front of the boat so that we could see the tip of Manhattan as we approached. When you're in the middle of Manhattan it's easy to forget it's an island surrounded by water. So approaching it via ferry was pretty neat. The three of us talked about what it must have been like for the immigrants arriving to Ellis Island seeing New York from this vanatage point - I can't even imagine.

All in all it was a very enjoyable hour spent and I would do it again! Growing up I used to hear a lot about the SI Ferry, my parents would tell me about how they would go on dates sometimes on the Ferry for their date because it was free and at night with the city all lit up it was a beautiful ride. Now I understand what they were talking about. I definitely would love to do the Ferry ride at night.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ferry is a lot of fun, but for an even cooler river experience you guys should do one of the river cruises, some aren't that expensive and bring you right by the statue of liberty, it's even more amazing at night!

TBird said...

All this and you don't even give a shout-out to your cousin having built the Manhattan-side ferry terminal . . . tsk tsk tsk . . . for shame . . .

And to properly enjoy the ambiance of the ferry, you need to buy a hot dog (A.K.A. Dirty Water Dog) and a tall-boy of Bud on the ferry. Beer+commuting are part of what makes NYC so great.