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I've seen plenty of documentaries about Ellis Island that mention how the immigrants could see the Statue of Liberty as they arrived. But until you go there and experience the view yourself, you can't fully understand how the heart swells at the sight, or how Lady Liberty seems so close and yet so far away. This view through a door window, past the scaffolding for restoration work being done on the main building, with the Statue partially bracketed by the last leaves of the fall still clinging to a tree, really evoked for me all the emotions those immigrants must have felt--hope and fear, grief and longing, determination and weariness.