New York City

The Original Torch

Viewed by millions as a symbol of both the nation and of the Satue itself, the torch was altered many times after its 1886 dedication.

Damaged beyond repair, the torch was removed from the Statue in 1984.   The flame the Statue now holds in a gilded, closed copper shell, lit from outside, sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi's original design.

Ellis Island

Ellis Island is an island in New York Harbor, within the states of New Jersey and New York.  Owned by the U.S. government, Ellis Island was once the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States.  From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 million immigrants arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey were processed there; approximately 40% of Americans may be descended from these immigrants.  It has been part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument since 1965 and is accessible to the public only by ferry.  The north side of the island is a national museum of immigration, while the south side of the island, including the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is open to the public through guided tours.

The name derives from Samuel Ellis, a Welshman who bought the island in 1774.   The second station opened in 1900 and housed facilities for medical quarantines and processing immigrants.  After 1924, Ellis Island was used primarily as a detention center for migrants.  During both World War I and World War II, its facilities were also used by the U.S. military to detain prisoners of war.  After the immigration station's closure, the buildings languished for several years until they were partially reopened in 1976.  The main building and adjacent structures were completely renovated into a museum in 1990.

The 27.5-acre island was expanded by land reclamation between the late 1890s and the 1930s. Jurisdictional disputes between the states of New Jersey and New York persisted until the 1998 U.S. Supreme Court ruling New Jersey v. New York. The Supreme Court ruled that, while most of the island is in New Jersey, the natural portion of the island (on the northern end) is an exclave of New York.  The northern half of Ellis Island comprises the former Island 1 and includes the main building, several ancillary structures, and the Wall of Honor.  The hospital structures on the island's southern half occupy the former sites of islands 2 and 3, and there is a ferry building between Ellis Island's northern and southern halves.