One of the places in my novel (Grace’s Pictures) where a lot of the action takes place is Battery Park.
Not only is Battery Park a beautiful place to visit where you can watch boats and observe the Statue of Liberty, it is full of history–the very spot many of our ancestors first embarked after leaving Ellis Island.
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| Immigrants arriving in Battery Park. |
When I was there I admired this statue and the old trees surrounding it, imagining that many early immigrants must have sat near it and rested from their journeys. If you read Grace’s Pictures, you’ll remember this statue.
At the edge of Battery Park is Castle Clinton, which at the time of my Ellis Island series was an aquarium.
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| Today |
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| In 1917 |
So much history exists on that small stretch of a park. Certainly much has changed. There are many statues now, not just the Ericsson one. The trees have grown large. On the weekends the park is filled with tourists, many who are preparing to take the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Street hawkers rest here, but there were certainly those in the era of my novels. And I noted something else. A rat scurried past me when I was there, and so Grace experiences the same thing in my novel. But don’t let that deter you if you have the chance to visit. Go sit on a bench and watch the sunset and think about our immigrant ancestors arriving in that spot over a hundred years ago. That’s what I was doing when I took this photograph.
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| ©2012 Cindy Thomson |
