MONTANA-L Archives

From: (Jim Nolan)
Subject: [MONTANA-L] NY Times editorial on Ellis Island
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 14:33:00 -0600 (MDT)

Figure some listers will be interested --

September 8, 2001
Ghosts of Ellis Island
The Ellis Island Immigration Museum recalls a time when this deserted
patch of earth in New York Harbor was teeming with immigrants waiting to
be processed and sent ashore as Americans. The two million people who
visit the museum each year spend an hour or so among the exhibits and
then leave, unaware that they have seen just one of 33 buildings that
make up the sprawling but largely forgotten Ellis Island complex. The
hospital buildings on the south side of the island were fenced off long
ago to protect tourists from falling bricks, collapsing timbers and
passageways that were knee-deep in dangerous debris. Temporary repairs
have gotten under way. But until permanent restoration is undertaken,
these magnificent buildings and the stories they have to tell are in
danger of being swept away.
The most startling part of the world inside the fence is the psychiatric
hospital, to which government officials dispatched immigrants who were
— or at least appeared to be — mentally ill. The sun porch of what
was called the Psychopathic Ward is enclosed by a rusting wrought iron
cage right out of a prison camp. The rooms are still eerily fitted with
rusting beds and have cages over the doors, windows and even over the
electric fans that were used to cool the place. The 29 buildings in this
complex are mainly hospitals where new immigrants were sent to give
birth, to be treated for curable illness or to die of illnesses that had
no cure.
The deaths and sickness are hardly surprising given that many immigrants
arrived here after weeks at sea in steerage, the cramped, windowless
bottom section of the ship. The typical accommodation was a space with
several hundred beds no more than two feet wide, crammed so tightly
together that there was barely room for the passengers to stand. With no
ventilation, and sanitary facilities inadequate, the air quickly became
foul and stayed that way. As a presidential report said in 1911, the
filth in steerage compartments made it "a marvel that human flesh
[could] endure it."
Despite the deterioration, the hospital complex remains a handsome
example of the golden age of public architecture, with copper gutters,
skylights clad in terra cotta and interior doorways trimmed out in
marble. Walking these ghostly hallways, from the nursery to the
operating room to the morgue, one feels vividly the terror of immigrant
people who had traveled thousands of miles in hardship only to be
confined here for weeks while the government decided whether they would
be sent back or allowed in.
After decades of neglect, stabilizing repairs will keep the buildings
standing while the National Park Service develops a restoration plan,
and a not-for- profit group, Save Ellis Island, raises the money to
finance it. With the cost estimated at $300 million, that effort has a
long way to go. But the story of immigration is at the core of the
American identity, and the buildings that help tell this chapter should
not be lost.

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• [MONTANA-L] NY Times editorial on Ellis Island by (Jim Nolan)