Fall 2007
Forgotten Ellis Island ~
The Extraordinary Story of America’s Immigrant Hospital by Lorie Conway
The following is an excerpt from the book jacket: A century ago, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, one of the world’s greatest public hospitals was built. Massive and modern, the hospital’s twenty two state-of-the-art buildings were crammed onto two small islands, man made from the rock and dirt excavated during the building of the New York subway.
Three short decades after it opened, the Ellis Island hospital was all but abandoned. As America after World War I began shutting its borders to all but a favored few, the hospital fell into disuse and decay, its medical wards left open to the salt air of the New York Harbor.
With many never-before-published photographs and compelling, sometimes heartbreaking stories of patients (a few of whom are still alive today) and medical staff, Forgotten Ellis Island is the first book about this extraordinary institution. It is a powerful tribute to America’s dealings with its new citizens to be.
Lorie Conway is an independent producer and filmmaker. Her work has been recognized with the Peabody, DuPont, and Cable Ace Awards. In 1993-94, she was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University; She now serves as Vice Presdient of the Nieman Foundation Advisory Board and as an Associate of the Boston Public Library. Her work on Forgotten Ellis Island was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit http://www.forgottenellisisland.com/.
Ellis Island Ferry Building Gala Opening
On April 2, 2007, the Ellis Island Ferry Building was officially opened to the public for the first time in over fifty years. More than two hundred supporters of Save Ellis Island came to hear speakers who are long time advocates for the complete restoration of Ellis Island. Speakers included U.S. Senator Robert Menendez and former Governor Christine Todd Whitman, both of whom were delighted to witness the opening of the first completely restored building located on the New Jersey portion of Ellis Island. The official ribbon was cut by Governor Whitman, Senator Menendez, SEI Chairman Clement A. Price, Ph.D. and Cynthia Garrett, Superintendent of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island.
After the ribbon cutting, guests were able to view the restored building and the newly installed exhibit, “Future in the Balance: Immigration, Public Health and the Ellis Island Hospitals.”
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Future in the Balance Exhibition and Restored Ferry Building
Popular with Visitors
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Have you seen the restored Ferry Building and the exhibition, Future in the Balance: Immigration, Public Health, and the Ellis Island Hospitals? If so, count yourself among the 1,209 people who took the walk from the Ellis Island Immigration Museum to the Ferry Building for a guided tour with one of our staff members or volunteers this April through July. In July and August, the National Park Service in cooperation with Save Ellis Island expanded the tour schedule to include Saturdays and Sundays as well as three or more days per week.
The exhibition explores how public health and immigration intersected at Ellis Island in the 1900s in the hospital buildings; the uses of the south side during the World Wars and into the 1950s; the restoration of the historic Ferry Building and the projected plans for the Ellis Island Institute and Conference Center on the south side. Visitors connect to the exhibit’s diversity of themes and time periods through artifacts, photographs, and the voices of hospital staff and patients during the tours. Passing around copies of objects that are also on exhibit -- such as a monaural stethoscope, a button hook, period photographs of the Coast Guard in the Ferry Building, and other documents -- volunteers and staff guide visitors to look at selected objects and highlight themes in the exhibition, then allow visitors to explore the exhibition on their own.
We would love to count you among the visitors to the exhibition and restored Ferry Building. Free public tours continue in the Ferry Building by Save Ellis Island volunteers and staff on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. These tours meet at the Save Ellis Island Information Desk in the Immigration Museum; space is limited.
If you would like to volunteer to work on Ellis Island at the Information Desk and giving tours, please contact Claudia Ocello at 973-347-8400 x17 or email to cocello@saveellisisland.org. Hands-on, curriculum-based school group programs are available beginning in September by reservation; please contact Claudia Ocello for more information and availability.
Ellis Island Ferry Building Recieves Award
At a ceremony held by the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office on April 28, 2007 in the State House in Trenton, Save Ellis Island received the prestigious Historic Preservation Award for the restoration of the Ellis Island Ferry Building. The historic preservation awards are given to projects and individuals that demonstrate exceptional merit in the field of historic preservation. Save Ellis Island was very pleased to receive this award for the first of many buildings expected to be restored on the New Jersey portion of Ellis Island.
In addition to the award for the overall project, Elizabeth Jeffery, Vice President, Planning and Capitol Projects, Ellis Island Institute, received an award for her management of the restoration of the Ferry Building. Don Fiorino, Supervising Architect for the National Park Service, also received an individual award.
After five years of planning, the Ellis Island Institute has become a reality. The National Park Service released the Development Concept Plan/Final Environmental Impact Statement in May, the planning document that lists the Ellis Island Institute and Conference Center as the preferred re-use for the unrestored buildings on Ellis Island’s south side.
The Ellis Island Institute’s mission is to use the power of place on Ellis Island to explore the issues of immigration, diversity and human health, past and present, through high level conferences and seminars, and through exhibits, ethnic festivals, music and film festivals, theater and other public programming for the more than 2 million visitors to Ellis Island each year. A core program of the Institute, professional development for educators, has already begun; over 400 teachers have participated in workshops and seminars since 2005.
Plans for the Institute include restoring several interior spaces in the historic hospitals for public tours, including an operating room, a typical measles ward, a laundry, the morgue and a powerhouse. The Recreation Building, with its original 1930s stage and projection booth, will serve as a plenary space and performance space. The Baggage and Dormitory Building, the largest unrestored building on the island, will include conference spaces, exhibit spaces and education/classroom spaces, along with visitor amenities.
Save Ellis Island is currently developing detailed plans for the Institute, while at the same time introducing public programs and tours in the restored Ferry Building as the first of many opportunities for the visiting public to discover the untold story of Ellis Island’s unrestored hospital buildings.
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The Great Lawn between the hospital buildings on Ellis Island’s south side is the perfect venue |
Teachers Explore Preservation and
Immigration in Summer Workshops
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To Save Ellis Island, July means workshops. This summer, we had the privilege of conducting two professional development programs - the ‘Science behind Historic Preservation’ and ‘Ellis Island and Immigration to America 1892-1924’, both conducted on Ellis Island.
The competitive ‘Science behind Historic Preservation’ workshop was funded through a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Sixteen middle and high school teachers from six counties in NJ were provided rare access to Ellis Island’s south side buildings, currently closed to the public, to undertake scientific investigations based on the inquiry method. Preservation architects, scientists, conservators and museum and classroom educators assisted teachers as they tested their materials and theories from observations of the staff house and a contagious disease ward. Experiments were conducted at the Columbia University Historic Preservation Program Conservation Lab with findings presented before a board of professionals.
The ‘Ellis Island and Immigration to America’ workshop, as part of the prestigious Landmarks in American History and Culture Programs funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, accepted 80 teachers from 260 applications. Each week long program included forty educators from Maine to California, who represented diverse districts and classrooms. Through lectures by noted scholars, museum visits, and walking tours of the un-restored buildings and historic immigrant neighborhoods in lower Manhattan and Chinatown, the educators experienced the advantage of site based learning. The lectures, discussions, tours and primary source documents provided an overview of the immigration process and highlighted the seldom told story of immigration as it relates to public health and building a workforce in America.
SEI recently heard that the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded our third Landmarks in American History and Culture Teacher Workshop grant for the summer of 2008. We are pleased to be able to welcome another 80 teachers to New York next summer. For more information about SEI’s teacher workshops, contact Claudia Ocello at cocello@saveellisisland.org. And please visit our education website at ellisislandinstitute.org.
Save Ellis Island Profile
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This issue, the spotlight is on Heather Hope Stephens, Education Department Intern.
An up and coming leader in the museum field - Heather Hope Stephens
Heather Hope Stephens is a graduate student in the M.A. Program for Museum Professions at Seton Hall University. Heather Hope served as the summer intern for the Education Department at Save Ellis Island from June - August, 2007.
However, “summer” started early for Heather Hope. In April, soon after SEI offered Heather Hope the position, she was called upon to help with the festivities of opening the Ferry Building. Heather Hope jumped right in and eagerly took on tasks from the most mundane - handing out programs to invited guests - to those more exciting - accompanying staff and invited guests on tours of the South Side.
Heather Hope also spent several weeks in May working at the Save Ellis Island Information Desk on Ellis Island, greeting people, answering questions, and providing tours of the Ferry Building exhibition. She diligently learned the background information about Ellis Island’s south side, and, combining techniques for teaching in museums and visitors and their needs that she learned in her graduate classes, Heather Hope welcomed visitors and opened the Ferry Building to hundreds of visitors to Ellis Island.
Although she’s traveled around the world, Heather Hope’s roots are in the Garden State. Last fall she moved to South Orange and began her graduate studies in Museum Professions at Seton Hall University. Her skills on the computer and facility with other office tasks really helped SEI get ready for the summer of teacher workshops as well as working on the Education website, ellisislandinstitute.org. She also helped research for the curriculum kit that SEI is developing for teachers to use in their classrooms. During the two weeks of NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops for teachers from across the country, Heather Hope stayed in the dormitory with the teachers, and helped them navigate New York as well as helping SEI staff with daily logistics and content for the participants. In their evaluations, participating teachers were complimentary about Heather Hope.
Heather Hope returns to continue her studies at Seton Hall University this fall. After graduation, she plans to go to law school and then, armed with her MA and JD, would like to work as an advisor to museums on legal issues. SEI has been lucky to have her as a part of our team this summer, and we look forward to hearing more about this up-and-coming young professional in the future.
Y Corridor/Pedestrian Passageway Nearly Completed
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With funding in place from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Green Acres Program, in September of 2006 SEI received bids for the restoration of the Pedestrian Passageway (Y Corridor) to complete the public access to the south side of Ellis Island. The Y Corridor is also known as the Marine Passageway 8A, 8B and 8C and provides a covered connection from the Ferry Building to the Hospital Administration Building, as well as the Laundry/Hospital Outbuilding and the south side courtyard. The exterior stabilization of the 2,804 square foot structure was completed in 2004. The existing passageway is 237 linear feet and consists of an exposed brick structure with arched windows and doors and an unfinished concrete ceiling and floor. The restoration contract was awarded to Schtiller and Plevy of Newark, New Jersey in October 2006. The work began in January 2007 and is expected to be completed in September 2007.
The restoration of the interior of the corridor consisted of structural steel and masonry work, installation and restoration of steel and wood doors and wood windows, repair and restoration of the exposed brick walls, ceilings and curbs and surface preparation and painting. The scope of work also included the abatement of lead-based paint in the corridor and finishing the roof restoration through installation of a copper flat seam assembly.
Save Ellis Island and the National Park Service are pleased that the nearly restored Y Corridor will be an inviting access route to the south side of Ellis Island.
Grants help Save Ellis Island meet the required expenses for operating a nonprofit organization and provide the funds necessary for the many restoration and education projects being carried out by SEI. The goals of these projects are to provide the public with expanded access to the historic spaces on Ellis Island and to deliver new information and experiences to the public about this important historic site. The spring of 2007 brought Save Ellis Island exciting grant news.
Save Ellis Island was awarded the following grants:
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$100,000 for FY 2008 from the New Jersey Historical Commission. These are some of the comments made by the review panel after assessing our proposal:
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“This is one of the most significant current undertakings in New Jersey public history.” “The effort to stabilize, restore and establish exhibits at the Ellis Island complex is well underway, with an impressive board and partnership arrangements in place.” “The panel considered this project extremely important and suggested an increase in NJHC funding that will reflect the importance of SEI’s work to American history.” |
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SEI also received new support from the Karma Foundation to help purchase the equipment needed to furnish the U.S. Customs Room in the newly restored Ferry Building to become a meeting space and classroom for Save Ellis Island’s education programs.
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In May, SEI received grants from The Hyde and Watson Foundation and The E.J. Grassmann Trust. These two foundations have given Save Ellis Island previous funding support toward the restoration of the Ferry Building and the design for the Laundry/Hospital Outbuilding.
Save Ellis Island would like to thank all of our grantors for their continued support.
