The Golden Door

When my friend Rosemary and I attended the wool felting workshop at Etsy Lab in Brooklyn before Christmas (see my prior post), we knew we would have to spend some time looking for parking in this densely populated area.  We left our neighborhood early and made one stop, first, in Brooklyn Heights before we walked over to the DUMBO neighborhood. We decided to go to the Brooklyn Promenade to take some photos since I had brought my "big" camera along. As we approached the promenade's viewpoint we saw the sun was getting low and shining so beautifully on Manhattan's tall buildings across the East River.

As the sun dipped lower in the sky a heavy fog started to rise up from New York City's harbor.

 

Using my zoom I could see Ellis Island in the distance surrounded by fog.

But an even more astounding view was of a combination of small rainbow light in the sky and the rapidly rising fog surrounding the Statue of Liberty!

The setting sun lit up the fog in a golden hue, and I was reminded of the poem "The New Colossus," by Emma Lazarus which is engraved on a tablet within the pedestal on which the statue stands:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows worldwide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 

 Serendipitously, as I prepared to write this post today, I read a fascinating review in the New York Times for the "Emma Lazarus: Poet of Exiles" exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage that is being held in conjunction with the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Click on the highlighted NY Times link to read it.

I was interested to learn from the same New York Times article that: "An average of more than a million people a year were granted permanent resident status in the United States in the decade ending in 2010, more than in any other comparable period in American history. And this does not count the estimated four million illegal immigrants that arrived during the same period."

Immigration has certainly been both a blessing and a strain at times in our history, but as a nation of immigrants, the "American Dream" seems to endure and remains a lure.  I know I am grateful for all the opportunities the USA gave to my immigrant ancestors, and I am also grateful for my husband who immigrated with his siblings and parents from Italy when he was a child.

New York City has been under an "arctic blast" of cold the past few days...brrrrr!  How is the weather where you are?




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