Recently I heard on the news that the Statute of Liberty was going to be open all the way to the top starting July 4, 2009 for two years. After 9/11 all tours were stopped inside which if you have never experienced that tour is amazing.
In 1989 David and myself and several of my friends on the synchronized team I skated on called the "Fabulous Forties" participated in the National Championships in Providence, Rhode Island. After the event (we won!) a group of us decided to stay for several extra days and travel to Boston, New York City and other sites. Mind you this was in late March early April so the weather was still a little cool.
One of our many stops was on the ferry to the Statute. Ellis Island was not yet an attraction you could tour. They were still in the construction stages but we couldn't pass up the Lady Liberty Tour. It was a little intense and several were afraid of extreme heights so only a few of us actually got all the way to the top. Also if you have any tendency toward claustrophobia it is really not the place for you. When they say they are taking groups of 10 at a time that's a crowd. I remember that the closest I could compare the space in it to was as a child I played at a park that had a spaceship you could climb up into and slide down the slide. Anyway that's exactly what memory it brought back to me.
Let me say the experience was breathtaking. Unfortunately the day was really cloudy so the pictures didn't do it justice but just to say we were a part of it was something all of us will never forget.
We have a group picture of some of us standing on the 107th Floor of the World Trade Center which of course now is bittersweet. That is the only place in my entire life that I was slightly afraid of heights because the building moved so much.
Someday I hope to get back to that part of New York City and experience it all over again.
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