Ellis Island Hospital: Part 4

I have thought about the incredible Ellis Island hospital tour many, many times since we took it in January. I don't imagine any tour topping it for a very long time—it was just so, so good. I've already shared my photos from inside of the abandoned hospital complex, the lonely chairs that I fell in love with and the beautiful JR art installation, but I never shared my photos from the hospital grounds.

The south side of the island isn't very large but it packs a lot into a relatively limited space. The main building, which houses the immigration museum, was restored in the 90s but the south side buildings remain in various states of decay and have never been open to visitors until now (and only as part of the hard hat tour that we took). It's kind of awesome to be able to see the unrestored buildings in the same view as the restored main hall—it's like a real-life before-and-after show.

The broken and boarded up windows, piles of forgotten construction materials, ivy-covered brick and even the lonely bird house all added to the eerie feeling of the complex. As much as I loved the buildings themselves, it's really the views from the grounds—of the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and Lower Manhattan—that make the trip to Ellis Island a must-do.

I don't think I'll be able to stop thinking about this tour for a very long time (like, probably never) and I keep wondering if I should just pull the trigger and book another ticket. As cold as our tour was, I loved that we got to see it in the snow and bright winter light but I'm already dreaming of getting the chance to explore these buildings in the spring.

Ellis Island Hospital: Part 3

During our tour of the abandoned hospital complex on the South Side of Ellis Island we were also lucky enough to be able to see the art exhibit "Unframed—Ellis Island" by JR scattered throughout the buildings. Life-size photographs of Ellis Island immigrants are pasted all around the complex—on broken windows, rusty lockers, walls—all interacting with their environments in interesting and surprising ways.

Usually I'm wary about installation pieces, especially if the building is something so extraordinary that it doesn't need any further embellishment, but this exhibit was spot-on. There were just enough of the pieces to keep you hunting for them, and to make them compelling when you did catch a glimpse as you turned the corner. Part of this has to do with the actual immigrants themselves—it's hard to beat the impact of seeing the people in situations and rooms in which they may have actually been.

Like all of the abandoned chairs, seeing the photographs really helped to humanize the spaces and allow us to better imagine what life must have been like when the buildings were operational. Our tour guide said that she had had descendants of some of the people in the photographs on her tours, which is pretty awesome. I've read quite a bit about Ellis Island, but this tour and exhibit left me wanting to know even more about the millions of people who passed through here and all of their fascinating stories.

Ellis Island Hospital: Part 2

As I was looking through my (massive amount of) photos from the incredible Ellis Island hospital tour that I took recently, I kept noticing chairs. Sometimes alone, sometimes in piles, sometimes neatly arranged, sometimes missing legs or splintered or covered in peeling paint—there were chairs everywhere.

There wasn't much in the way of actual objects in any of the buildings, apart from toilets, sinks, cabinets and other fixtures that were still attached in some way but there's something about an empty chair in an abandoned space that strikes me as especially creepy. Furnishings of any kind help make a space feel lived in and make it easier to imagine what the place was like when it was operational.

Some of the chairs felt purposeful, others felt tossed aside, but they always made me stop and look a little longer and a little differently than I might have in a completely empty space. Some even looked like they were just patiently waiting for their former occupants to return at any minute.

My favorite was actually a little stool—worn, cracked, covered in dust and missing half of one leg but still standing somewhat impossibly upright, basking in the bright sunlight.

Ellis Island Hospital: Part 1

On Saturday Jim, Katie, Grace and I took a tour of the abandoned hospital complex on the south side of Ellis Island. I had booked our tickets the day they became available—back on balmy October 1st. Saturday was very cold, but brilliantly sunny, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the tour was the best tour I've ever taken in my entire life.

This was due partly to us lucking into a private tour when the other people scheduled for our time never showed up, partly due to our incredibly knowledgable, friendly and all-around awesome tour-guide, and partly due to the fact that the buildings are in such a beautiful state of decay.

The sunlight streaming in from open doors, broken windows and holes in the ceilings made every single angle more interesting than the last and as usual I took more photos than I thought humanly possible. I have a few more posts planned for the grounds and a wonderful art installation that was sprinkled around the buildings, but these are my favorites from the interior spaces.

The complex reminded me so much of Eastern State Penitentiary, and as much as I adored our tour-guide, I do wish I had had free reign and more time to spend taking photos. It's probably better that I had some parameters, however, because I most definitely would have just never left.

Our tour was long—even longer than the allotted 90 mins because our guide was that awesome—but I could have spent days inside of the crumbling autopsy room, mortuary, doctors' quarters, laundry, infectious disease wards and all of the other fascinating corridors winding around the island.

Surprising no one, my favorite room was the autopsy room with its four huge body freezers, sinks, lights and theater-like set-up. Ellis Island was a state-of-the-art medical facility and teaching hospital in its heyday and was one of the largest public health hospitals in the US.

In 1930 the hospital closed, and the entire complex was abandoned in 1954—this is the first time that the public has ever been allowed to tour the buildings. Some of the complex is still far too unstable to allow visitors and everyone must sign a waiver and wear a hardhat before beginning the tour.

I would absolutely take the tour again in a heartbeat. Even if the ticket price might seem pricey ($43), all of that money goes to Save Ellis Island, a group whose mission it is to help protect and preserve the historic hospital complex.