www.fodors.com, November 2005

Ellis Island

Between 1892 and 1924, approximately 12 million men, women, and children first set foot on U.S. soil at the Ellis Island federal immigration facility. By the time the facility closed in 1954, it had processed ancestors of more than 40% of Americans living today.

The island's main building, now a national monument, reopened in 1990 as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, containing more than 30 galleries of artifacts, photographs, and taped oral histories. The centerpiece of the museum is the white-tile Registry Room (also known as the Great Hall). It feels dignified and cavernous today, but photographs show that it took on a multitude of configurations through the years, always packed with humanity undergoing one form or another of screening. While you're there, take a look out the Registry Room's tall, arched windows and try to imagine what passed through immigrants' minds as they viewed lower Manhattan's skyline to one side and the Statue of Liberty to the other.

Because there's so much to take in, it's a good idea to make use of the museum's interpretive tools. Check at the visitor desk for free film tickets, ranger tour times, and special programs. The audio tour is worth its $6 price: it takes you through the exhibits, providing thorough, engaging commentary interspersed with recordings of immigrants themselves recalling their experiences. Along with the Registry Room, the museum's features include the ground-level Railroad Ticket Office, which has several interactive exhibits and a three-dimensional graphic representation of American immigration patterns; the American Family Immigration Center, where you can search Ellis Island's records for your own ancestors (for a $5 fee); and, outside, the American Immigrant Wall of Honor, where the names of more than 500,000 immigrant Americans are inscribed along a promenade facing the Manhattan skyline. (For $100 you can add a family member's name to the wall.) www.ellisisland.org. COST: Free; ferry $10 round-trip. OPEN: Daily 8:30-5:15 extended hrs in summer.

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For 20 years Antenna Audio has been the leader in the field of digital audio and multimedia interpretation, providing the highest quality programming, equipment solutions and service, with the goal of creating an emotionally and intellectually engaging experience for visitors to museums, historic sites, and attractions. Over 70 million people worldwide have experienced an Antenna Audio tour at more than 800 sites, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery, London, the Louvre, Edinburgh Castle, the Alcatraz Cellhouse, and Elvis Presley's Graceland.

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