The Millionaire saga, Day 2

Wednesday, September 15:

I woke up early (well, for me anyway) and padded around Julie's apartment in my caftan, gabbing away on various subjects. Eventually I kicked it into gear and got dressed for the day, and we took the subway to 96th Street, near our hotel. (This particular hotel, by the way, proved to be the hospitality destination of choice for French tourists everywhere. I think we may well have been the only English-speaking party staying there all that week.)

I checked in, we went up the somewhat creaky elevator, looked around the room, pronounced it nifty. Julie had some school stuff to do and errands to run, not to mention a mom and sister to pick up later, so she took her leave.

Having several hours to kill, I did what any self-respecting pirate king would do in such circumstances: headed for open water.

I took the subway down to Lower Manhattan/Battery Park with the intent of catching a ferry to Ellis Island.

You must understand, before I continue, that I have on two other occasions tried to make it to Ellis Island, and failed both times. I had in fact begun to think of this particular voyage as "my doomed trip to Ellis Island," because I never seemed to manage to get there.

This time, though, I got smart. When we reached Liberty Island (here pictured: the wretched refuse of its teeming shore, all trying to get on board), I was not lured off the ferry by the promise of stamped copper coins and overpriced hot dogs, but stayed put instead.

And here's what I got for my trouble.

Behold! Proof positive that I finally made it!

Why was I so fired up to get to Ellis Island, you may ask?

I'll tell you.

Because on May 28, 1915, Catharina Witteveen, a slight, brown-haired, brown-eyed Dutch lady, came off the steamer Rotterdam into this room. Hers was the very first information taken on the original ship's manifest, which perhaps suggests she was quite eager to be off the boat where she'd spent so many days in steerage. The immigration officer noted that she was 22 years old and single, had been born in Amsterdam, had $25 to her name, that she was going to Salt Lake City to stay with family members, that she was neither a polygamist nor an anarchist, was in good physical and mental health, and had paid for her own passage. She was my great-grandmother.

Some of this information I already knew, having gotten it from Grandma firsthand when I was young -- Grandma lived a long life and died a few months short of her 95th birthday -- but it's one thing to hear about these events, and another to stand in the place where they happened. And it is a remarkable place.

The tiled ceiling of the Registry Room. There are 28,282 cream-white tiles in the ceiling, placed there by the Guastavino Brothers, originally of Italy. There is perhaps no finer testament to their skill than this simple fact: when the room was renovated, only 17 of the ceiling tiles needed to be replaced.

There are two 48-star flags in the Registry Room, dating from the period when Ellis Island was in use.

Despite its historic status and its importance to many American families, whose relatives immigrated to the U.S. during the era when this was the primary processing facility for new immigrants, much of Ellis Island has fallen into disrepair. The buildings are in the process of being restored, outside and in.

This photo was taken from one of the upper floors of the Immigration Museum, looking across the island to the Medical Building, where scores of new immigrants with communicable diseases waited and received treatment until they were healthy enough to enter the U.S. The Medical Building has not yet been restored. If you look you can just see the Statue of Liberty on the left.

This turn-of-the-20th-century medical equipment was taken as-is from the Medical Building and is on display in the museum.

From all parts of Ellis Island you can see the mainland. It makes you wonder what it was like for immigrants who had to wait, sometimes for weeks, until they could come across. I imagine quite a few of them had trouble with being so close to and yet so far away from their goal. Here, a Registry Room view of Lower Manhattan (although obviously it didn't look anything like this when my grandma was here).

Not every emigrant who made it to Ellis Island was guaranteed to get to America. I saw this editorial cartoon from Puck (depicting the scourge of cholera as brought in by immigrants) as a color lithograph at Ellis Island, but it didn't photograph too well. The caption at the bottom reads, "The kind of 'assisted emigrant' we can not afford to admit." The comment seems callous to modern eyes until you realize that there were no antibiotics then, and the only weapons to fight cholera were carbolic acid, chloride of lime and thymol (as shown in the illustration).

The United States regularly turned away people who had spent their life savings to come here because they were considered undesirable in some way; obviously, in my great-grandmother's time, polygamists and anarchists were unwelcome, but so were people with poor eyesight and those with certain types of communicable diseases. My grandmother remembered a band of Russian Jews who had come across on the Rotterdam with her, who had literally sold everything they owned and who had walked across Europe to pay their passage on a ship to America. When they got to Ellis Island, it was determined that they were too ill (or too dirty, or who knows what else) to become Americans, and a red X was painted on their backs; they were then placed on a boat going back to Europe. Some were so despairing, having no home or family to go back to, that they threw themselves off the boat in an attempt to drown themselves in the harbor. Whenever my grandmother told this story, she would bristle with indignation at what had been done to them. "'Give me your tired, your poor,' but not your sick," she would say angrily.

When she saw certain would-be immigrants getting rejected, my great-grandmother was terrified she wouldn't be allowed into the United States. But she was fortunate enough to be accepted, to be reunited with her family, and to marry her sweetheart. And her descendants, including me, were therefore fortunate to be born in an amazing country.

Goodbye Ellis, hello Manhattan.

On the way back toward Battery Park we passed a boat full of happy tourists, all waving wildly at the ferry. So I took their picture because, hey, why not?

The ceiling of each ferryboat is used as storage for life preservers. Lots and lots of life preservers.

How many life preservers, you may ask?

That's how many.

As I was leaving Battery Park I came across an old, um, dentally-impaired woman begging right in the middle of the footpath, asking passersby to "help me get a hot dog." I suspected the kind of "hot dog" she was looking to buy was measured in grams and served in a plastic baggie, so I chose not to give her change. She then shouted angrily after me, "You're a big one, ain't ya? I bet you're about 500 pounds!" It took all my will not to turn around and say, "And you're an ancient toothless crack whore begging for money on the streets of New York City. Guess which I'd rather be?"

Mutta mutta.

Anyway, I went back to the hotel to find myself alone for a while. Julie was still out and about, my mom and sister weren't due into JFK for another hour or two, and I would have called Captain Midnight or Miss V, but I didn't have a cell phone and the hotel room rates were best described as extortionary.

According to this website, I am now a douchebag. Huh.

Eventually I got tired of staring at myself and went out for a walk around the neighborhood.

Here's the spire of the Holy Name of Jesus Church, right around the corner from our hotel.

And here's the Duane Reade where I picked up a whole bunch of toiletries and some bottled water.

Duane Reade is literally everywhere in New York. There are more Duane Reade stores in Manhattan than there are Starbucks Coffees in Seattle. You cannot swing a cat in New York without hitting a Duane Reade...

...as copious photographic evidence suggests.

When my mom and sisters finally showed up and started talking about all the things they needed, I kept responding, "You can probably pick that up at Duane Reade." It became the most popular running gag on this trip.

I needed to pick up my suitcase, which was still at Julie's apartment, so Julie, Jenny and I all hopped on the subway and rode uptown. Not only did we get my bags, but we also stopped by a street vendor on Julie's block and got a few skewers of "street meat."

This is the only documented evidence that I had street meat. Mmm, tasty... AND you get a handy self-defense weapon into the bargain! Such a deal.

Aren't my sisters just darling? Easily the cutest girls on the 1 train that day.

When we got back to the hotel, everyone took a cab to a Vietnamese restaurant and we ate with gusto. I had shrimp wonton soup and the most delicious Saigon beef ever. (Sorry, no pictures... we were all too busy devouring like locusts to take any photos.) Then after cabbing it back to the hotel, Julie went home to do her best at getting a good night's sleep for The Big Day to come.

Much later that evening, my brother Tim's flight arrived at JFK and he took a shuttle bus to the hotel. It was his first time in New York and he described the place, a little uneasily, as "too much city for me." By the time he got in, it was quite late -- close to 1 a.m. local time -- so he strapped on his CPAP (which made him sound a lot like Darth Vader with adenoids) and promptly hit the sack.

And, after copious scribbling in my travel journal, so did I.