Island Of Lost Souls

Ellis Island is tiny. Not as tiny as it used to be, since most of it was created from landfill got from digging the New York Subway. Like all the good bits of the USA it was originally English, and in contrast to the way the Americans saw it – a humanitarian base epitomising hope and liberty for new immigrants – we saw it as a strip of mud in a river, and chose to hang people on it. We called it Gibbet Island.

Clearly most people’s voyage accross the Atlantic was much as depicted in the historical masterpiece “Titanic”. Spending weeks in squalid cramped steerage conditions with bubbly dwarf Leonardo DiCaprio dancing like he’s fitting would send me potty. Consequently the largest building on Ellis Island is a nut house. The second largest building is a regular hospital, but the only building you can visit is the hall where the immigrants were processed. They’ve really only started renovating the place as you can see, if you take a wander to the bits you’re not supposed to see:

Nice Bit

Oh Dear

Somehwat obviously inside there’s an exhibition of immigration which is actually very good and worth a gander, lots of pictures of stick people coming from Ireland, Italy, Greece, Germany and Poland, as well as details of the breakdown of the proportion of black vs white coming in. I’m not convinced the majority of blacks were technically immigrants, and whilst they might’ve avoided the DiCaprio effect, I doubt it was a pleasant voyage that ended with a check up at a nice hospital, a free Twinkie and a ‘have a nice day’.

There was a bunch of human interest stories – interviews with the people that made the trip. It would seem from reading these that upon arrival, shortly after you were hosed down, you were given your own restaurant, a hat (to be worn at a jaunty angle) and your teeth were knocked out to give you an earthy smile. But there was a special exhibition of the cultural impact of the immigration on America’s theatre and music. I took some photos of the billboard posters, as you can see for there to be a melting pot, you have to put it on a fire.

In the main hall where the immigrants queued for their papers, I got this eerie sense of what went on before in that room, hairs on the back of your neck stuff and wotnot. After checking that I wasn’t just hungover, coming down with the pox or that I’d turned in to Paula Abdul I put it down to just having a moment. There’s nothing in this hall, its just a big room, the decor is a tiler’s wet dream and when the other tourists had left there wasn’t even any noise. Spooky, thats what it was.

Upon arrival the starving immigrants must have stared in wonder at the food court. It’s a masterpiece in culinary efficiency (that means Not Good), offering ‘Foods of the World’ including pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, coffee and root beer. So for those that missed their homeland, the food would make them feel comfortable. For at least 24 hours which is when mine repeated.

Of all the places I’ve been in New York this is my favourite. I have no idea why really, just that it is. I think it’s the first place I’ve been where I’ve had the sense of the past all around me without it being cheapened by tourist crap. Oh wait, then the boat docked back in Manhattan:

Maybe I’ll go check my oestrogen levels after all.