Ellis Island discoveries

Recently, my sister Melissa suggested a book for me to read. She thought with Julianne working somewhat regularly at Ellis Island as part of her service in the New Jersey Morristown Mission, that I'd really enjoy Liberty Falling by Nevada Barr. A murder mystery that takes place on Liberty Island and Ellis Island, much of the action involves the old buildings on Ellis Island that have not been restored as neatly and nicely as the main Immigration building that you see in pictures or have visited personally while in NYC. These other buildings in their hey day housed a state of the art hospital, infectious disease wards, nurses quarters, a morgue, etc. They have been abandoned and left to decay. There have been attempts made to raise money to restore or at least stabilize these old historical buildings, but it's slow going.

This book, Liberty Falling, was written in 1999, after the Immigration Building was restored and made into a museum, but before anything was done with the south side of the island. So, much of the creepy parts of the book are centered there. Three people in all meet their doom in this book, two of them falling (or being pushed) from the Statue of Liberty, believe it or not. The whodunits hide out in the abandoned section of Ellis Island and of course the main character of the story likes to traipse around there after dark where things seem a lot spookier. And all of this of course lead to attacks on her life, and stumbling across another nearly dead body that has been bludgeoned by said bad guys.

Anyway, this was all rather fascinating to me. Because though murder mysteries aren't necessarily my favorites, I do enjoy them from time to time...usually reading them in the light of the day rather than right before bed so as to ward off nightmares. I am indeed a first class chicken. Judge me if you must. But mostly I loved the historical aspect of it all and spent a lot of time looking up pictures and maps and websites devoted to these old buildings, what took place there, what they look like now, and what is being done to save them. And yeah, those buildings even today are equal parts fascinating and creepy.

Julianne of course works in a section of the restored main Immigration building on the north side of the island. She helps people find their ancestors in the Family Search Center. On days she is scheduled to work there, she drives from Jersey across to the island. Did you know that there is a road? Or a bridge or causeway of some sort? I didn't until Julianne told me. I've always taken the ferry from Battery Park at the tip Manhattan. Tourists from the New Jersey side also take a ferry. Only employees are allowed to drive across and there is all sorts of security. (Side note: before Julianne left for her mission she sent in requested paperwork, along with a copy of her Social Security card for a background check so she would be allowed to work on Ellis Island. Security is pretty tight.)

(These pictures are from my trip to Ellis Island last summer, a few weeks before Julianne left for her mission.)

I had just finished this book a few days earlier when I got an email from Julianne on Monday. She sent a picture with an explanation that she and her companion had been scheduled to work at Ellis Island the Friday previous, but when they arrived they couldn't find a spot in the parking lot, so they ended up parking on the south side in a grassy area by one of the old abandoned buildings. And sitting right there was an old torch from the Statue of Liberty that had been replaced at some point, and was being stored...possibly because they didn't know what else to do with it or how to dispose of it or maybe had plans for it down the road? Who even knows. Anyhow, Julianne thought it was cool. And I thought the timing was kind of uncanny seeing as I had just read that book. So of course I stayed up late Monday night looking at even more pictures and maps, trying to guess where exactly she had parked. And then I had the heebie jeebies all night long as my mind replayed the creepy scenes from the book over and over. First class chicken, remember?

Heebie jeebies or no, they now have tours of some of the abandoned buildings on Ellis Island, and when Julianne and I go back next summer to visit her mission, I'm going to make sure we get in on that action.