The Registry Hall, the morgue, the communicable disease ward, the cafeteria, over thirty buildings to explore. Some were filled with old forms from its last active days in the '50s. There were even clothes left from the occupation by a group of protestors in the early '70s.

Steve and I made a 16 mm film in 1974 about the island with interviews of immigrants that came through and felt a sense of loss when they began to renovate it. The renovation of the Registry Hall cost $150 million; to restore the rest of the island would cost an estimated $200 million.

If you got to this page on Ellis Island directly rather than via my "Modern Ruins" page you may want to check out more photos of Ellis Island that I shot in 1997.