Ellis Island: Where Immigrants Found Their Place in the World
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France’s gift to the United States has crowned New York harbor since 1886. (Copyright Joseph Pobereskin/NYC & Company, Inc.)
Declared part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, Ellis Island underwent a $162 million renovation in the 1980s and reopened to the public as a museum in 1990.
Today, the Ellis Island Immigration Museum is dedicated to commemorating the immigrants’ stories and their pursuit of a new home and the American Dream. The museum contains 30 galleries and exhibits filled with artifacts, historic photos, posters, maps, oral histories, and ethnic music.
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For more than 12 million immigrants, Ellis Island was the doorstep of their new life in America. (Copyright Jeff Greenberg/NYC & Company, Inc)
In time, the utility of the island dwindled when restrictions were placed on immigration in the 1920s, and Ellis Island closed its doors in 1954. In the years after, the buildings suffered tremendous damage in the often severe weather of New York Harbor.
“Concern about this vital part of America’s immigrant history led to the inclusion of Ellis Island as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965,” according to the museum’s Web site at www.ellisisland.com.
“Private citizens mounted a campaign to preserve the island, and one of the most ambitious restoration projects in American history returned Ellis Island’s Main Building to its former grandeur in September 1990.”
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This replica of Lady Liberty’s flame sits in the American Museum of Immigration in the base of the Statue of Liberty. (Copyright NYC & Company)
These are among other features:
• “Island of Hope, Island of Tears” is a 30-minute film produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Charles Guggenheim in which immigrants tell their stories of pulling up roots and coming to America. Free tickets can be obtained at the Ellis Island information desk; they are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
• “Voices from the Past” are one-person shows connected with Ellis Island history. Some shows include “Irving Berlin’s America,” “An American Wake,” “Songs and Stories of Irish Immigration,” “Bela Lugosi and the Legend of Dracula,” “The Titanic—A Survivor’s Story,” and “The Journey of Annie Moore”—the story of the first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island. Tickets cost $2 each, and the shows last approximately 20 minutes.
• “The Ellis Island Oral History Project” has been conducting interviews since 1973. More than 1,500 interviews have been collected containing firsthand accounts of those who were processed at Ellis Island. There are also a number of interviews with doctors, nurses, clerks, and immigration officials who recall the operation of the Ellis Island immigration facility. The Oral History Library is open to the general public and contains a computer system with 20 listening stations. Also located in the museum is the American Family Immigration History Center, which provides access to ships’ passenger manifest records of the 22 million people who entered America through the Port of New York and Ellis Island (see box).
To visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Immigration Museum, visitors must take the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Ferry from Battery Park in lower Manhattan. ▪