The ferry slip and the red brick palace with its four towers, then the great hall: the tiled vault, the flags, the long benches, the stair of separation, the works where the inspectors stood.
Ellis Island opened as the federal immigration station on January 1, 1892, and Annie Moore of Ireland was the first to pass through. After a fire, the current main building by Boring and Tilton opened in 1900, and the Guastavino tile vault of the Registry Room went in during 1918. About twelve million immigrants passed through before the station closed in 1954, and the museum opened in 1990.
Source · National Park Service, Ellis Island ↗
The French Renaissance main building in red brick and limestone with copper domed towers, the registry room with its Guastavino tile vault and three great arched windows, the iron railings, the American flags, the benches in rows. Mood: arrival morning. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.