We packed a lot in today! It was our opportunity to see many of New York’s most famous attractions from the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island to Ground Zero. We ended the day with a trip to the “Top of the Rock” for a panoramic view of New York City.

Part of the day was spent looking back at the history of the people who immigrated to America through Ellis Island. We spent time looking at an exhibit of photographs of the people who settled in New York’s Lower East Side. The students were asked to examine the photographs and notice what was happening in the photo, how the people in the picture were the same or different from us today, and why the photographer might have taken the picture.

Some of the comments were:

“The man in the picture is sad looking. You would think he’d be happy that he was escaping whatever disasters he left, however, I’d be sad if I had to leave my belongings behind.”

“If the photograph was taken today, the choice of clothing would be different. There wouldn’t be many similarities compared to today because things are extremely different.”

“I think the photographer took this photo for two reasons…the first is because maybe they took pictures of each person who passed through. The second is that maybe they wanted to show all of the different cultures of people who were coming to America.”