Ellis Island – once the gate of the new world
America’s museum of immigration
MúzeumCafé 32.
Invited by the American magazine Esquire, writer and journalist Sándor Hunyady (1890–1942) spent ten weeks in America in the spring of 1940. When Hunyady returned to Hungary he introduced the scene of his interment in one of his first reports about his journey: “Ellis is a tiny island in the city itself. It can be approached only by ferry for which you don’t pay a fare because you can step on the land only in connection with official matters – either as a warden or a prisoner.” However, since he was there it has changed. Today you can get to Ellis Island by buying a 12-dollar ticket in the former fortress called Clinton Castle situated in Battery Park. After some hospital treatment Hunyady was taken to the island. “It is bleak. It altogether has only a rather fancy but ugly building of red stone. One wing houses marines, the other is a prison. If an alien arriving in America has something wrong with his papers he is interned here while his case is investigated. They look into who he is more thoroughly, then he is either let free or deported back to where he’s come from. This is the filter with which the United States protects herself against non-desirable elements.” On a large grassy area by the main building and the wing that used to house the dormitories stands the huge, shining Wall of Honor by now forming a full circle. It’s a metal wall with the names of more than seven hundred thousand immigrants. Today, apart from exhibitions, there are films about the history of the island and the former immigration office, which can be viewed in the old main building inaugurated on 17 December 1900 and opened as a museum on 10 September 1990. There is the American Family Immigration History Center where anyone can research their family. Naturally there is also a library and a separate Oral History Room.