“On July 4th, we are giving America a special gift.”
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was joined by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Rep. Albio Sires (D-13th Dist.) at Ellis Island on May 8 to hear Salazar announce that the Statue of Liberty’s crown – closed since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks – will reopen to the public on July 4.
Access to the crown will be limited to 30 people at a time, guided by a National Park Service ranger.
The official address of the Statue of Liberty is 1 Communipaw Ave. in Jersey City, so the second largest city in New Jersey can proudly call the lady its own.
At the announcement, Menendez commented on the opening of the crown.
“For years I’ve helped lead the effort to once again allow the public to visit Lady Liberty’s crown,” Menendez said. “The Bush Administration didn’t listen. The Obama Administration did.”
Also happy that the crown is reopening is Jersey City activist Sam Pesin, the president of the group Friends of Liberty State Park (FOLSP). Pesin said he had not been in the statue since 1957 when his father took his family there, a trip that prompted the late Morris Pesin to start the movement that led to the creation of Liberty State Park in 1976.
“It’s great that people will be able to go to the crown, which will bring more visitors not just to the Statue of Liberty, but also to the park,” Pesin said. Ferries leave from a dock in Liberty State Park to visit the statue.
In addition, the Department of the Interior announced at the press conference that they will invest $25 million, under President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan, to refurbish two aspects of Ellis Island.
The money will go to renovate the Baggage and Dormitory Building at Ellis Island. That building was erected in 1908 to house immigrants waiting for further processing. The money will also go toward repairing 2,000 feet of the island’s crumbling seawall.
Making the repairs
Ellis Island opened as a federal immigration station in 1892. Twelve million immigrants were processed on the island until November of 1954.
Many of the buildings on the south side of Ellis Island, which lie within New Jersey territory, are now vacant, deteriorating, and closed to public view.
However, the Mount Olive, N.J. based non-profit organization Save Ellis Island, Inc. has raised awareness and finances to get the buildings repaired. Since then, the Ferry Building has been restored and holds an exhibit of items and photos documenting the immigrant experience on the island.
Judith McAlpin, president of Save Ellis Island, Inc., said the project to restore the Baggage and Dormitory Building is important, as it is the largest of the remaining buildings on the island. And the stabilization of the seawall is a continuation of a long-term project.
McAlpin sees the May 8 announcement as a reaffirming of the federal government’s “commitment” to the restoration of Ellis Island.
In an interview, former U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini said he is happy to see more restoration of the place where his grandparents came from Italy in the early 1900s. He also hopes this will open up the conversation about building a new pedestrian bridge from Liberty State Park to Ellis Island, which he has advocated for many years.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonrreporter.com.