DEPARTS: 9 AM
DAILY

LENGTH: 4 HRS
ADULTS PRICE: $84.99
CHILDREN PRICE: $59.99 UNDER 12 YEARS OF AGE
INCLUDES: PASSES TO THE STATUE OF LIBERTY PEDESTAL & ELLIS ISLAND

AVAILABLE: MIXED GROUP AND PRIVATE GROUP

Planning ahead is essential to making the most of your visit to the Statue of Liberty. Please keep in mind, thousands of people visit daily, Elegante Tours provides our customers with a guided tour-guide with passes that bypass these lines from the ticket booths.

What about Ellis Island Tickets? We got them too, and it is included with our Platinum New York Tour.

ON THIS TOUR

· Statue of Liberty

· Ellis Island

· World Trade Center / Ground Zero

· The Charging Bull

· The New York Stock Exchange

· Trinity Church (New York City)

· Saint Paul’s Chapel

· Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum

· Chelsea Piers

· Times Square

Here’s some history on the sites you will see (either walking, short stops or by transportation)

· Liberty Enlightening the World

The Statue of Liberty National Monument and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum are important pieces of American history and icons of freedom around the world.

The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, designated as a National Monument in 1924 and restored for her centennial on July 4, 1986. The Statue of Liberty National Monument was completed on October 28, 1886. From the base to the top of the torch, she is 151 feet high. The exterior structure of the Statue is made of copper and the interior support structure is made of steel. Her official name is “Liberty Enlightening the World.”

· Ellis Island – Part of Statue of Liberty

Ellis Island is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It was added to the National Park System in May of 1965 and through extensive restoration, its main building opened over a quarter century later on September 10, 1990 as a national museum of immigration. Ellis Island is federal property partly within the territorial jurisdiction of the both the States of New York and New Jersey.

· World Trade Center / Ground Zero

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked and intentionally crashed two passenger aircraft into the monolithic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC). Five smaller trade center buildings were also destroyed beyond repair. The world watched in horror as approximately 3000 people died including 350 rescue workers. New Yorkers resolved to rebuild the WTC and redevelopment is underway to transform Ground Zero into a thriving union of commerce. Five new towers are scheduled for completion by 2011 and 2012.

· The Charging Bull

On the night of December 15, 1989, sculptor Arturo Di Modica and friends drove a flatbed to the 60-foot tall Christmas tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange, and unloaded a 7,000-pound gift. Workers arriving in the Financial District the next day were confronted by a sleek, 16-foot-long bronze bull, head down, nostrils flaring, poised to charge up Broad Street. In a flyer distributed that day, Di Modica stated that he created the sculpture after the stock market crash of 1987 as a symbol of the “strength, power and hope of the American people for the future.”

· The New York Stock Exchange

The origin of the NYSE can be traced to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. On March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution and renamed itself the “New York Stock & Exchange Board.” Anthony Stockholm was elected the Exchange’s first president.

The first central location of the Exchange was a room, rented in 1792 for $200 a month, located at 40 Wall Street. After that location was destroyed in the Great Fire of New York in 1835, the Exchange moved to a temporary headquarters. In 1863, the New York Stock & Exchange Board changed to its current name, the New York Stock Exchange. In 1865, the Exchange moved to 10-12 Broad Street.

· Trinity Church (New York City)

Trinity Church (also known as Trinity Wall Street) at 79 Broadway, New York City, is a historic, full-service parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Trinity Church is located at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in downtown Manhattan.

On September 11, 2001, as the 1st Tower collapsed people took refuge from the massive debris cloud, inside the church. Debris from the tower collapsing knocked over a giant sycamore tree that had stood for nearly a century in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Chapel, which is part of Trinity Church’s parish and is located several blocks north of Trinity Church. Sculptor Steve Tobin used its roots as the base for a bronze sculpture that stands next to the Trinity Church.

· Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum

The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum is a military and maritime history museum with a collection of museum ships in New York City. It is located at Pier 86 at 46th Street on the West Side of Manhattan. The museum showcases the World War II aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the submarine USS Growler, a Concorde SST and a Lockheed A-12 supersonic reconnaissance plane. The museum serves as a hub for the annual Fleet Week events. Visiting warships dock at the cruise ship terminals to the north, and events are held on the museum grounds and the deck of the Intrepid.

Originally founded in 1982, the museum closed in 2006 for a 2 year renovation of the Intrepid and facilities. The museum reopened to the public on November 8, 2008, with William White as its president.

· Chelsea Piers

Chelsea Piers is a series of historic piers on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City that was a passenger ship terminal in the early 1900s that was used by the RMS Lusitania and was the destination of the RMS Titanic.

The piers are currently used by the Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex. The new complex includes film and television production facilities, including those for CBS College Sports Network and Food Network, a health club, a day spa, the city’s largest training center for gymnastics, two basketball courts, playing fields for indoor lacrosse and soccer, batting cages, a rock climbing wall and dance studios. In addition there is an AMF Bowling center, a golf club with multi-story driving range, and two full sized ice rinks for skating. It is located in the Chelsea neighborhood, on the northern edge of Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District.

· Flatiron Building (private tour only)

The Flatiron Building or Fuller Building as it was originally called, is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, and is considered to be one of the first skyscrapers ever built. Upon completion in 1902 it was one of the tallest buildings in New York City. The building sits on a triangular island block at 23rd Street, Fifth Avenue, and Broadway, anchoring the south (downtown) end of Madison Square.

The neighborhood around the building is called the Flatiron District after its signature building, which has become an icon of New York.

· Empire State Building (private tour only)

The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark Art Deco skyscraper in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, The Empire State. It stood as the world’s tallest building for more than 40 years, from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center’s North Tower was completed in 1972. Following the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, the Empire State Building again became the tallest building in New York City. The Empire State Building has been named by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and confirmed by the New York City Board of Estimate. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. In 2007, it was ranked number one on the List of America’s Favorite Architecture according to the AIA. The building is owned and managed by W&H Properties.

The Empire State Building is the third tallest skyscraper in the Americas (after the Willis Tower and Trump International Hotel and Tower both in Chicago), and the 15th tallest in the world. It is also the fourth tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. The Empire State building is currently undergoing a $550 million renovation, with $120 million utilized in an effort to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure

· Grand Central Terminal (private tour only)

Grand Central Terminal (GCT) — often incorrectly called Grand Central Station , or shortened to simply Grand Central — is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Built by and named for the New York Central Railroad in the heyday of American long-distance passenger trains, it is the largest train station in the world by number of platforms: 44, with 67 tracks along them. They are on two levels, both below ground, with 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms and in rail yards exceeds 100. When the Long Island Rail Road’s new station below the existing levels opens, Grand Central will offer a total of 75 tracks and 48 platforms. The terminal covers an area of 48 acres

Although the terminal has been properly called “Grand Central Terminal” since 1913, many people continue to refer to it as “Grand Central Station”. “Grand Central Station” is the name of the nearby post office, as well as the name of a previous rail station on the site, and is also used to refer to a New York City subway station at the same location.

· United Nations (private tour only)

The United Nations Organization (UNO) or simply United Nations (UN) (Arabic: الأمم المتحدة, French: Organisation des Nations Unies, Chinese: 联合国 / 聯合國, Spanish: Organización de las Naciones Unidas, Russian: Организация Объединённых Наций) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions.

There are currently 192 member states, including nearly every sovereign state in the world. From its offices around the world, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout the year. The organization has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (for assisting in promoting international economic and social cooperation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (which is currently inactive). Other prominent UN System agencies include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The UN’s most visible public figure is the Secretary-General, currently Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who attained the post in 2007. The organization is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, and has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian and Spanish.

· Fifth Avenue (private tour only)

Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, USA. The section of Fifth Avenue between 34th Street and 59th Street is one of the premier shopping streets in the world. Fifth Avenue serves as a symbol of wealthy New York and is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive streets in the world. The “most expensive street in the world” moniker changes depending on currency fluctuations and local economic conditions from year to year. For several years starting in the mid-1990s, the shopping district between 49th and 57th Streets was ranked as having the world’s most expensive retail spaces on a cost per square foot basis. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Fifth Avenue as being the most expensive street in the world.

Fifth Avenue originates at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village and runs northwards through the heart of Midtown, along the eastern side of Central Park, where it forms the boundary of the Upper East Side and through Harlem, where it terminates at the Harlem River at 142nd Street. Traffic crosses the river on the Madison Avenue Bridge. Fifth Avenue serves as the dividing line for house numbering in Manhattan. It separates, for example, East Fifty-Ninth Street from West Fifty-Ninth Street. From this zero point for street addresses, numbers increase in both directions as one move away from Fifth Avenue, with 1 West Fifty-Ninth Street on the corner at Fifth Avenue, and 300 West Fifty-Ninth Street located three blocks to the west of it.

· Rockefeller Center (private tour only)

Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it from 1930. Rockefeller initially planned a syndicate to build an opera house for the Metropolitan Opera on the site, but changed his mind after the stock market crash of 1929 and the withdrawal of the Metropolitan from the project. Rockefeller stated “It was clear that there were only two courses open to me. One was to abandon the entire development, the other to go forward with it in the definite knowledge that I myself would have to build it and finance it alone.” He took on the enormous project as the sole financier, on a 24-year lease (with the option for three 21-year renewals for a total of 87 years) for the site from Columbia; negotiating a line of credit with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and covering ongoing expenses through the sale of oil company stock.

· St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York (private tour only)

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral is a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church in the United States. It is the seat of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and a parish church, located on the east side of Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets in midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York. It faces Rockefeller Center.

The land on which the present cathedral sits was purchased for $11,000 on March 6, 1810, as a site for a school for young Roman Catholic men, the New York Literary Institution, to be conducted by the Jesuits. The school closed and was sold to the diocese. In 1814, the diocese gave use of the property to Dom Augustin LeStrange, abbot of a community of Trappists (from the original monastery of La Trappe) who came to America fleeing persecution by French authorities. In addition to a small monastic community, they also looked after some thirty-three orphans. With the downfall of Napoleon in that year, the Trappists returned to France, abandoning the property. The property at this point was designated for a future cemetery. The neighboring orphanage was maintained by the diocese into the late 1800s. Some of the Trappists resettled to Canada and eventually founded St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts.

The Diocese of New York, created in 1808, was made an archdiocese by Pope Pius IX on July 19, 1850. In 1853, Archbishop John Joseph Hughes announced his intention to erect a new cathedral to replace the Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in downtown Manhattan.

The new cathedral was designed by James Renwick, Jr. in the Gothic Revival style. On August 15, 1858, the cornerstone was laid, just south of the diocese’s orphanage. At that time, present-day midtown Manhattan was far north of the populous areas of New York City.

Work was begun in 1858 but was halted during the Civil War and resumed in 1865. The cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated on May 25, 1879, its huge proportions dominating the midtown of that time. The archbishop’s house and rectory were added from 1882 to 1884, and an adjacent school (no longer in existence) opened in 1882. The towers on the west façade were added in 1888, and an addition on the east, including a Lady Chapel, designed by Charles T. Mathews, was begun in 1901. The stained-glass windows in the Lady Chapel were designed and made in Chipping Campden, England by Paul Vincent Woodroffe between 1912 and 1930. The cathedral was renovated between 1927 and 1931 when the great organ was installed and the sanctuary enlarged.

· Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. The extended Times Square area, also called the Theatre District, consists of the blocks between Sixth and Eighth Avenues from east to west, and West 40th and West 53rd Streets from south to north, making up the western part of the commercial area of Midtown Manhattan.

Formerly named Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in April 1904 after the New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly built Times Building, which is now called One Times Square and is the site of the annual ball drop on New Year’s Eve. Times Square, nicknamed “The Crossroads of the World” and “The Great White Way”, has achieved the status of an iconic world landmark and is a symbol of New York City and the United States.

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the United Nations Headquarters, it is also an important center for international affairs. The city is often referred to as New York City or the City of New York to distinguish it from the state of New York, of which it is a part. Located on a large natural harbor on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States, the city consists of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. The city’s 2009 estimated population approached 8.4 million, and with a land area of 305 square miles (790 km²), New York City is the most densely populated major city in the United States. The New York metropolitan area’s population is also the nation’s largest, estimated at 19.1 million people over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km²). Furthermore, the Combined Statistical Area containing the greater New York metropolitan area contained 22.2 million people as of 2009 Census estimates, also the largest in the United States. New York was founded as a commercial trading post by the Dutch in 1624. The settlement was called New Amsterdam until 1664 when the colony came under English control. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the country’s largest city since 1790. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. Many districts and landmarks in the city have become well known to outsiders. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Times Square, iconified as “The Crossroads of the World”, is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway theater district, one of the world’s busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Anchored by Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, New York City vies with London as the financial capital of the world and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. The original Manhattan Chinatown attracts throngs of tourists to its bustling sidewalks and retail establishments. World-class schools and universities such as Columbia University and New York University also reside in New York City. Disclaimer: The website links and/or URL addresses on this website are NOT affiliated with or endorsed by Elegante Tours & Transportation Inc., in anyway and are provided for informational purposes only.

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