Ellis Island Then & Now

Between 1892 and 1954, about 12 million people entered the United States through Ellis Island. Drag across each photograph to compare the immigration station in those years with the restored island today.

The island from the air

Black-and-white aerial photograph of Ellis Island: the main building with its four towers at the back and rows of hospital buildings on bare, treeless landfill in the foreground Color aerial photograph of Ellis Island today from the same angle: the same buildings with red roofs, now surrounded by mature trees and lawns

Landfill grew Ellis Island from about 3 acres to more than 27, making room for the hospital and contagious-disease wards in the foreground. The buildings still stand; the trees came later.

The main building

Black-and-white photograph of the Ellis Island main building seen from the water, a man in a cap raising his hand toward it in the foreground The restored main building today under a clear blue sky: red brick, white limestone trim and four copper-domed towers behind a line of green trees

The French Renaissance Revival main building opened in 1900, replacing a wooden station lost to fire in 1897. Its restoration reopened it as a museum of immigration in 1990.

The Registry Room

Black-and-white photograph of the Registry Room filled with immigrants seated on rows of benches, two large American flags hanging from the balcony The restored Registry Room today: empty wooden benches on a polished tile floor, the same two flags, and a vaulted tile ceiling lit by arched windows

Arrivals waited here, on the second floor of the main building, for medical and legal inspection. The vaulted Guastavino tile ceiling above them was installed in 1918.