Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Tour with Sailboat

The Statue of Liberty has anchored New York Harbor since 1886, a copper colossus turned green by the salt air, raising her torch where the Hudson meets the Atlantic. Drawing close to her by water is the way generations of arrivals first saw her, and there is still nothing like watching that famous silhouette grow from a distant pinprick into a towering figure overhead. Nearby Ellis Island, the gateway through which millions of immigrants once passed, sits low and dignified across the same stretch of water.

Out on the harbour the city rearranges itself into something cinematic: Lower Manhattan's skyline, the long sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge, the open sky off the Battery. Wind fills the canvas, gulls trail the wake, and the rumble of the streets fades into the slap of waves against the hull. It is New York seen the old way, from the deck of a tall ship, the harbour breeze in your face and the whole glittering city laid out around you.