The Statue of Liberty has stood in New York Harbor since 1886, but most visitors see her only in midday glare. Evening transforms both the monument and the water around it. Between 1892 and 1954, more than twelve million immigrants passed Liberty Island aboard ferries bound for Ellis Island, and the harbor remains one of the world's busiest shipping corridors. The statue herself rises 305 feet from base to torch tip, her copper skin now oxidized to the signature green patina that first appeared in the early twentieth century. A New York City sunset boat cruise to Statue of Liberty departs from Pier 16 at South Street Seaport, a granite-and-brick waterfront district that served as the city's maritime heart through the clipper ship era. The seaport's piers were rebuilt in the 1980s, preserving their timber pilings and cast-iron bollards. Most sunset cruises follow a counterclockwise loop: south past Governors Island, west toward Liberty Island, then north along the Hudson to view the Manhattan skyline from the water. The route covers roughly seven nautical miles in sixty to ninety minutes, depending on the operator and vessel. Liberty Island occupies a twelve-acre footprint in Upper New York Bay. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the statue as a symbol of republican ideals, with Gustave Eiffel engineering the internal iron framework that supports the copper sheets. The torch was regilded in 1986 using 24-karat gold leaf, and it catches the last sunlight long after the statue's face falls into shadow. Ellis Island lies half a mile north, its red-brick immigration station now a museum. The harbor also frames views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the south and the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan to the east—One World Trade Center, the Woolworth Building, and the Battery. Evening light on the water shifts by season. Summer sunsets occur after 20:00 and paint the harbor in amber and rose. Autumn sunsets, earlier and briefer, deliver sharper contrast and clearer air. Winter light is cold and blue, with the statue often silhouetted against pale sky. Spring brings variable cloud cover that can fracture the horizon into bands of color. Operators schedule New York City sunset boat cruise to Statue of Liberty tours to align with civil twilight, the thirty-minute window when the sky still holds light but the city's buildings begin to glow.