Ellis Island - Gateway to America

  
It was cold for a November day and while waiting at the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan, for the line to inch along I couldn't help but imagine what it must have been like a hundred years ago.

Today the sun was shining bright, the three of us had a crowded trip into Grand Central, but waiting to get the ferry for Ellis Island was truly unique.

                                      (an original photo of pier A)

Dodging pigeons, men with suitcases full of knock off watches, pretzel stands and the permeating fragrance of sugared chestnuts, we found our way into line at Castle Clinton to eventually snake around Pier A and its restoration, and gaze at all the mural sized billboards of original photos of immigrants arriving, as they came down the gangplanks to Ellis Island.

 

In front of me I had a family huddled against the wind coming off the harbor, hats pulled low over the forehead, collars upturned, excitedly talking among one another. I couldn't understand them but the grandmother who had opened a container of grapes, while another family member added nuts and raisins to it, turned to me slowly looked me in the eyes and held it out to share. Behind me was a family speaking a different language, while pointing across the water to the Statue of Liberty. We communicated with our smiles and expectations.

The war monuments, and seagulls kept us company as the hours whiled away.

By early afternoon, we had finally snaked around to the building for inspection and metal detectors, and numb with cold watched as the ferry came to dock. We were finally on our way. 

The top tier of the ferry was bitter cold, the gusts of wind slapped hard at the face but the expectation of what was ahead drove out any discomfort.

After a short while we came close to Liberty Island and the only thing in the midst of sky and sea, was a colossal statue of a woman holding a glinting gold torch.

It was truly inspiring, and I felt a shiver of what it might have been like for the families that packed up their most precious possessions and left behind a way of life, praying for a better one ahead.

Finally we came to Ellis Island, slowly drawing closer and the turrets and building came to life. I could imagine the sounds and the fear and hope as multitudes clutched their baggage and each others hands.

 The first Immigration Station on Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892, with 700 immigrants entering that day.

                                    (Ellis Island Picture Archive)

Reasons for leaving the old country behind were numerous, but mainly they were due to religious persecution, war,  and famine. The first arrivals came from northern and western Europe (Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries). Over time, this slowed and more immigrants were flooding in from southern and eastern Europe, which brought about quotas during the 1920's.

This day in New York Harbor, you could feel the millions of immigrants that came to America, there actually was a sort of anxiety that accumulated as we passed through the many rooms at Ellis Island. This had been the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 to 1954. 

During the 1840's as the potato famine forced countless Irish families to flee, they literally came off the ships to the Battery Park area of Manhattan and walked their way up to the lower East Side and for the most part settled into the Five Points neighborhood, (that is so well portrayed in the film The Gangs of New York). 

All you had to do, was vote democrat and be a part of the Tammany Machine. Prior to the opening of Ellis Island, over 8 million immigrants were processed at Castle Garden Immigration Depot in lower Manhattan.  All in all over 12 million people would pass through Ellis Island before it closed.

 The first person admitted to Ellis Island was Annie Moore, who arrived on her 15th birthday, January 1, 1892 from County Cork, Ireland. She probably travelled as so very many others, in steerage, then carried their few bags off the ship onto a barge that was waiting, and at long last, down the gangplank to the main hall inside Ellis Island.

 Entering the huge hall, frightened and curious, you were tagged with information from the ship's registry, told to drop your possessions (for fumigation) given a ticket to reclaim your possessions later on, and started for the long lines of medical and legal inspections.

If you passed all the tests, you were fit for entry. This could take anywhere from a matter of 5 hours, or if unlucky, weeks. Eighty percent successfully passed through quickly, but not everyone was allowed to stay.

Two percent were sent back after making the long and arduous original journey for various reasons, and a label of "The Island of Tears" was coined. If a family member had a disease they would be sent home or held in the island's hospital facility for a long stay.

More than 3,000 people died while staying in the hospital, and at present they are renovating all the facilities where the hospital and psychiatric ward were. They are knee deep in asbestos, and attempting to restore to the original, the buildings right across from the immigration facility.

Any unskilled person was likely to be rejected as there was a worry that they would become a public charge. America wanted its citizens to add to the prosperity and grander of this land, and not to be a burden.



Reasons for being deported were, having a chronic or contagious disease, insanity and a criminal background.

As you left your bags, you were then told to go upstairs for the next process, and unknown to the immigrants, uniformed guards would be stationed at the top of the stairs observing how you walked up. A chalk mark code using symbols was hastily written on your  clothing indicating through initials weather you had lung problems, mental problems, heart problems etc, all gathered from your demeanor at the top of the stairs.

The inspection line would include a six second medical exam, and the dreaded eye exam would include a button hook to check for trachoma (a contagious eye disease) that turn your eyelid inside out and if bumps were detected, they were scrubbed down and iodine was washed over them. The bottonhook would then be wiped on the inspectors coat, and applied to the next person.

Once in the Great Hall, you would look up at the huge vaulted ceiling all covered in gleaming white tiles, travel with your eyes to the stained glass windows and back to the ceiling where Tiffany chandeliers hung in a row.
 Be careful, if you looked at too many things, the guards would consider you senile and chalk the S onto your clothes. Some immigrants would wipe the chalk marks off or try to hide the initials by turning their clothes to the other side.

Part of the process was being asked 29 questions, putting together timed puzzles, matching patterns from drawings, declaring the amount of money you had, and checking to see that you were not likely to incite political trouble. If for any reason you were detained for health reasons, (if you were pregnant for example, you would not be allowed to leave until you gave berth), you were given a dorm and three meals a day (paid for by the ships passage you had booked).

The dining commons could seat up to 1,000 people and food was plentiful. A meal could consist of beef stew, bread, baked beans, or herring and fruit.
 The great surprise to the delight of the immigrants was America's unique new foods, such as bananas (eaten, minus the skin), sandwiches and best of all ice cream. I was surprised at the quality of china and silverware that they used to set the tables with.

Passing through the various halls and rooms, there definitely is a feeling of what a young or elderly family member might have experienced, excitement, fear, but hope above all else. 

 The peak years of Ellis Island were between 1900 to 1914, when up to 10,000 people passed through the station each day. From the building many immigrants would decide to travel no farther than Manhattan, while others would get back on the barges to take them to the rail stations in New Jersey, on their final destinations across America.

By 1921 the Immigrant Quota Act and the National Origins Act of 1924 limited the amount and the nationality of immigrants that were allowed into the U.S. This would end the era of mass immigration into New York.

The peak year for immigration at Ellis Island was in 1907 with over 1 million immigrants processed. The most individuals processed in one day, occurred in 1907, on April 17, with 11, 747 immigrants arriving.

In 1954 Ellis Island closed, but today in walking the original corridors and tiled floors that countless women, men and children had, one hundred years ago, is haunting to say the least.