Between 1892 and 1954, some twelve million immigrants passed through a red brick building on a small island in New York Harbor. Waiting for them were doctors who watched them climb a staircase, inspectors with twenty-nine questions and, for a few, a hearing room that could send them back to Europe. Twelve stops between the tavern of a city that was born multilingual, the steamship offices, the Battery, the fort that was the first immigrant station, the statue that welcomed them, the landing on the island, the baggage room, the doctors' staircase, the great registry hall, the detention rooms, the stairs of separation and the wall bearing the names of their descendants. Approximate audio duration: 24 minutes.
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Ellis Island: la puerta por la que entraron doce millones de personas
Entre 1892 y 1954, unos doce millones de inmigrantes pasaron por un edificio de ladrillo rojo en una pequeña isla del puerto de Nueva York. Allí los esperaban médicos que los observaban mientras subían una escalera, inspectores con veintinueve preguntas y, para unos pocos, una sala de audiencias que podía devolverlos a Europa. Doce paradas entre la taberna de una ciudad que nació políglota, los muelles de las compañías navieras, el parque de la Batería, el fuerte que fue la primera estación de inmigrantes, la estatua que les dio la bienvenida, la llegada a la isla, la sala de equipajes, la escalera de los médicos, el gran salón de registro, las salas de detención, la escalera de la separación y el muro con los nombres de sus descendientes. Duración aproximada de audio: 24 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~24 min of audio · 5.77 km on foot (~1 h 25 min walking) · about 2 h in total
You are standing before a red and yellow brick building on the corner of Pearl Street and Broad Street. This is Fraunces Tavern. Look around: glass towers everywhere, and in the middle of them, this three-storey house that seems to belong to another century.
Pearl Street, right in front of you, was the waterline when this was New Amsterdam, a Dutch colony. Everything between here and the river is land reclaimed from the harbor.
As early as 1643, a French Jesuit missionary, Isaac Jogues, wrote that eighteen languages were spoken in this little settlement of a few hundred people. New York was …
2
The Custom House and Steamship Row
You are in Bowling Green, the small oval park where Broadway ends. It is the oldest public park in New York, dating from 1733. The iron fence around it was put up in 1771.
Look at the great stone building to the south. It is the old Custom House, completed in 1907 and designed by Cass Gilbert. Notice the four seated sculptures in front of the facade: Asia, America, Europe and Africa, by Daniel Chester French.
Until 1913 the United States had no federal income tax. A huge share of government revenue came from duties on goods entering through its ports. And the biggest port was this one.
Now …
3
The Tip of the Island and Those Who Arrived
You are in Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan. In front of you lies New York Bay. Look southwest and you will see the Statue of Liberty, and a little closer, to the right, a brick building with four towers: Ellis Island.
The park takes its name from the gun batteries that defended this shore since colonial times. And much of the ground beneath your feet did not exist: it was filled in with earth and rubble during the nineteenth century.
Look in the park for a bronze sculpture of several figures pressed together. It is called The Immigrants, made in 1973 by the Spanish sculptor Lu…
4
Castle Garden, the First Door
You are in front of the thick, rounded walls of Castle Clinton. Today it is the ticket office for the boats to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. But before Ellis Island, the gateway to the United States was right here.
The fort was built between 1808 and 1811 on a small artificial island about a hundred metres offshore. It never fired a shot at an enemy. As the nineteenth century landfill advanced, the shore caught up with it and it ended up inside the park.
In 1824 it became Castle Garden, an entertainment hall. In 1850 the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind sang here before thousands of peop…
5
The Statue That Was Not Made for Immigrants
You are on Liberty Island, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Look up: the copper figure is about forty-six metres tall, and with its pedestal it rises over ninety.
Its official name is Liberty Enlightening the World. It was a gift from France to celebrate the friendship between the two countries and American independence. The sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it, and the iron framework inside is the work of Gustave Eiffel.
It arrived in 1885, dismantled into hundreds of pieces packed in more than two hundred crates. But there was no money for the pedestal. The publisher Joseph…
6
A Tiny Island That Kept Growing
You have stepped off the ferry on Ellis Island. In front of you is the main building: red brick, pale stone and four towers with copper domes. It opened in December 1900, in a style inspired by the French Renaissance.
Originally this island was a bank of sand and mud of just over one hectare. The Lenape people came here to gather oysters. In the eighteenth century pirates were executed here, and it took its name from Samuel Ellis, a merchant who owned it around 1780.
To build the immigrant station it was enlarged with landfill, partly with earth dug out of subway and railroad tunnels. It end…
7
The Baggage Room: Third Class Only
You are on the ground floor, in the old baggage room. Look at the trunks, the cardboard suitcases and the cloth bundles on display. For many people, that was everything they owned in the world.
Something that surprises visitors: not every passenger came through Ellis Island. First and second class travelers were inspected on board, in their cabins, and stepped straight onto the piers of Manhattan or New Jersey.
Ellis Island was for third class, the people who had crossed in the lower decks. When the ship docked they were loaded onto barges and ferries, sometimes crammed together for hours, a…
8
The Doctors' Staircase
You are at the foot of the staircase leading up to the Great Hall. It looks like any other staircase. But for the immigrants, climbing it was the first test, though many did not know it.
At the top, on the landing, doctors from the Public Health Service were waiting. They watched each person climb while carrying their bundles. If someone was panting, limping or seemed confused, they noticed.
This first glance became known as the six-second exam. On its own it decided nothing. Its purpose was to pick out those who needed a closer examination.
With a piece of chalk, the doctor wrote a letter …
9
The Great Hall and the Twenty-Nine Questions
You are in the Great Hall, the Registry Room. Look up: an immense tiled vault, about seventeen metres overhead. The place is empty and quiet now. Picture it filled with thousands of people, with voices in dozens of languages.
For years the hall was divided by iron railings that formed aisles, like a maze. The lines moved slowly towards the desks at the far end, where the inspectors waited.
The inspector had the ship's manifest in front of him. He asked each person about twenty-nine questions: name, age, occupation, destination, whether they could read, who had paid for their ticket, whether …
10
The Island of Tears
You are in the rooms around the Great Hall, where a hearing room and a detainees' dormitory are on display. Notice the metal bunks stacked three high. This is where those who did not pass at first sight waited.
Being detained did not mean being deported. Many were simply waiting for a relative to collect them, for money to be wired or for medical clearance. Women and children traveling alone, for example, usually could not leave until someone came to claim them.
Doubtful cases went before a Board of Special Inquiry: three inspectors who heard the immigrant, their witnesses and their relative…
11
The Stairs of Separation
You are beside the staircase that leads down from the Great Hall. Notice that it is divided into three sections. It was called the Stairs of Separation.
Once approved, immigrants came down this way. The section they took marked their immediate future. On one side, those continuing by train to the rest of the country. On the other, those staying in New York and taking the ferry to Manhattan.
The middle section led to detention, further examinations or a hearing. Sometimes a family that had crossed the ocean together was split up on these steps.
More than two thirds of the immigrants did not …
12
The Wall of Names and the End of an Era
You are on the east side of the island, in front of the steel panels of the American Immigrant Wall of Honor. Across the water rise the towers of Lower Manhattan, barely a mile away.
That short distance was all that separated immigrants from their new lives. For some it was crossed in an afternoon. For others, held in the hospital or waiting for a hearing, it lasted weeks.
The great wave ended with two laws. In 1921 and above all in 1924, Congress imposed quotas by national origin, designed to hold back immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. From then on, inspection took place at consu…
How long does the "Ellis Island: the Door Twelve Million People Walked Through" audio tour take?
It has about 24 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 5.77 km walking route (~1 h 25 min on foot). Plan roughly 2 h in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "A City Born Speaking Many Languages" (coordinates 40.70338, -74.01139). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "Ellis Island: the Door Twelve Million People Walked Through". No account required to start.
