The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 25

THE COURIER-NEWSSunday, September 9, 1990 C-5 ELLIS ISLAND, 1892-1990 lkerd Critics view Ellis revival I I I'' i i ii 1 1 I I' i I pi I I CU--r 1 I 'zXJ Or- Continued from Page C-1 "They've done a beautiful job," said Guerino Salerni, 85, of Queens, New York, after touring Ellis Island last week. "It's important that future generations will be able to see this place." Salerni first saw Ellis Island in 1919 as a 14-year-old arriving from Sicily, Italy. Today the island doesn't look quite like it did when Salerni and 17 million other immigrants passed through its doors between 1892 and 1954. The original details have remained: the odd wooden benches, the ancient toi-let fixtures and the white-tiled floors and walls. But the character of the old Ellis Island is gone forever.

In plain, utilitarian rooms once used to process an average of 5,000 people per day, workers have installed sleek, multi-media museum exhibits telling the immigrants' stories. The imposing, cavernous main building now houses two movie theaters, a modern cafeteria, a souvenir shop and an information center. Escalators, air conditioning and a glass-domed atrium are other obvious concessions to the modern age. Some observers commented during a recent tour of the island that the building looked too modern, that it didn't feel old. Ellis Island officials say that to accommodate the large volume of visitors certain modifications had to be made for convenience and safety.

The National Park Service, which administers the Ellis Island museum, expects between 2 million and 3 million visitors the first year. Visitors will board a Circle Line ferry from either Liberty State Park in Jersey City or Battery Park in Manhattan to Ellis Island. The round trip fare of $6 for adults and $3 for children includes admission to Ellis Island and the nearby Statue of Liberty. ARA Services, a Philadelphia-based firm, was contracted to provide the concessions and souvenir sales at Ellis Island. The museum, housed in the main building, includes 100,000 square feet of exhibition space that covers two separate themes.

Half of the museum is focused on the history of Ellis Island; the other half is devoted to the entire legacy of immigration in this Workers on Ellis Island are getting the exhibits in the immigration 7. ,1 Although the Ellis Island experience, with its impersonal processing and bureaucracy, was not a pleasant one for most immigrants, personal recollections of Ellis vary greatly. "People had different experiences here and the place kept changing," Wasserman said. "Immigrant oral histories are only one source we used; they represent the more impressionistic kind of evidence." In addition to interviewing dozens of immigrants, MetaForm also based the museum exhibits on massive numbers of photographs, original drawings, purchase orders, documents, newspaper and magazine accounts, commissioners' reports and government studies of the facility. MetaForm spent seven years collecting objects from immigrants across By PHILIP HOSMER Courier-News Staff Writer Ellis Island, known for the poweri ful emotions it elicits, leaves Fred McDarrah flat.

McDarrah toured the new Ellis Island Immigration Museum recently and says he came away without a sense of what Ellis Island was like when it was operating from 1892 to 1954. "They made it so clean and polished and sterilized," McDarrah says; "that I didn't get any impression at all. For one to picture what it was like is very hard to do. If it (the? museum) was done well, it shouldn't be hard to imagine." McDarrah is co-author, with his wife Gloria, of a museum guidebook; "Museums in New York," that covers 90 museums and exhibits in New York City. Maria Searles, who came through Ellis Island in 1922, as an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, also remarked, that the museum felt and looked too modern.

"That's a legitimate concern," said Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, a. Rutgers professor of history who was an adviser to the museum. "Yes, I-think it's too modern looking from a personal point of view. I liked the way it looked when it was old and dusty. The way we deal with the past is to clean it up." Yans-McLaughlin added that Ellis Island officals had to make certain modifications to the structure of the building to accommodate the more than 2 million visitors expected to; converge on the museum the first year.

"If people thinks it looks too clean, well, it was likely to be fairly clean when it was in operation also," said Fred Wasserman, of MetaForm, the New York company that designed the exhibits. 'It's only going to look modern for the first week," said Diana Pardue, head of the National Park Service's museum division at Ellis Island. "With all the visitors we expect, it will get worn down pretty fast." helps Island want to say from the old days think would be missing what made' this country great," he said. "Look at Japan. To me, an Ellis Island graduate, you can imagine-how incensed I get when they won't accept Vietnamese boat people and Koreans, and we welcome them with open arms." Americans have their horizons expanded by rubbing elbows daily with people who are different, lacocca said.

As a boy, he told playmates about a strange family dish pizza, now more American than the hamburger. If Ellis Island is so important as a symbol, then why will next weekend's ceremony be so low-keyed in compar- ison to the giant Statue of Liberty I celebration? A few speeches, a recep- tion and dinner, and that's about it' 1 "Why isn't there more Well, what do you want fireworks? I You want 200 Elvis Presley look-'; alikes? A big celebration? I said this is different. One was like going to a Fourth of July picnic, the bands were playing. This is like going to "They both fill a need, but you should quiet it down a little." the island restoration, the Ellis Island project I was financed by private donors whose contributions ranged from pennies to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The most visible support came from those who paid $100 to have an.

immigrant's name inscribed on a Wall of Honor ringing the island. More than 200,000 names have been' registered, and the foundation recent- ly announced that it would continue 1 accepting names for a second wall until next spring. Son of immigrants, lacocca rededicate refurbished Ellis 11.1 111,1 Courier-Newt photo by Dean Curtis A little-known fact is that one-third of the immigrants who came to America in the 20th century have since returned to their homelands. Visitors will get an intimate glimpse of the Immigrant experience in a half-hour film, "Island of HopeIsland of Tears," by Oscar-winning filmmaker Charles Guggen-' heim, shown in the museum's two theaters. Surrounding the refurbished main hall, 31 other crumbling, shattered buildings will remain as they are, their future still uncertain.

A private group is trying to raise money to build a conference center in the buildings. For now, they will stand abandoned and silent, home only to the distant cries and echoes from the past. Immigrants and their children tell their Ellis Island stories in their own wordsC-6 this church. And there were the stairs, and when I think about my father and mother coming in And I'm giving him the story. I look around and he's crying! He said, "You know, my mother came through lacocca also gets a bit indignant when it's suggested that ethnic diversity is behind some U.S.

problems unbalanced trade, industrial decay, educational decline. According to that scenario, America's melting-pot role is the main reason we're being outperformed in some areas by ethnically homogeneous nations, including Japan. "To say we should all be in lockstep or in goosestep, whatever you touches on palace." The site provokes strong emotions, and Briganti brims with them. When Chrysler Chairman Lee A. lacocca hired him to run the Ellis Island Foundation, he told Briganti: "This is a job you have to feel." That apparently has been the easiest part of his Job.

"The intellectual aspects of this museum will appeal to everybody," he said. "The emotional aspects will appeal to Ellis Islanders and their heirs." Like the earlier Statue of Liberty 1 museum ready for opening day. America. There are more than 1,500 photos, 100 passports and 2,000 artifacts (including books, musical instruments and clothing) in the museum. From their research, museum officials have made some general conclusions about the Ellis Island experience.

"Most of the immigrants were anxious, didn't know the language and had many fears and hopes," Wasserman said. "It was unsettling and confusing." Wasserman hopes the museum will dispel stereotypes and put the Ellis Island immigration story into a larger, global immigration context. "We're not trafficking in stereotypes and myths," Wasserman said. "There is a more comprehensive and complex history of immigrants." our heritage. And what's that? Back to Ellis Island.

immigrants that came in had one thing in common they worked their butts off. There were no free lunches." Sunday on the island in New York Harbor, Vice President Dan Quayle and lacocca will dedicate the new National Museum of Immigration and designate the 27-acre site a national shrine. Public visitors can come ashore the next day. Iacocca's parents, Nicola and Antoinette, first saw that Great Hall when they arrived from Italy early this century. Like 100 million or so living Americans who can trace their roots to that spot, lacocca has an intense emotional attachment to the hall.

Chrysler's chairman is getting tired, however, of news stories describing how he gets misty every time he sees the place. "I always tell a story about a guy from CBS, who shall remain nameless, who went over and he's interviewing me," lacocca said. "I'm telling him, 'Let me give you an idea. Here's the way I view this cathedral, put finishing exactly the way it did to the millions of immigrants who landed there on their way to new lives, and old pictures show no trees. Briganti's pleasure over saving the trees is nothing compared to his delight and amazement that the building behind them was rescued from decades of neglect, vandalism and decay.

"It is a miracle," Briganti said. "The place was so big, nobody could figure out what to do with it. Isn't it a beautiful building? It looks like a Aerobics Class 6900 SNil country, from the first immigrants to the present day. In both sections of the museum, the emphasis is on debunking the myth of immigrants as "the poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free" that Emma Lazarus immortalized in her famous 1883 poem. Most immigrants didn't come to America to "breathe free" as Lazarus wrote, but to get jobs and make money.

"There's the notion that immigrants were victims, poor souls who were pushed around." said Fred Was-serman of MetaForm, the New York company that designed the museum exhibits. "But most people made calculated decisions to come here. And most weren't all that poor, because they had to afford a steamship ticket to get here." FALL-WINTER New Jersey School Of Of) Sdocx of nj Bw Co Beginners thru Professionals Children Teen Adult West Grange MadisonSomervill8 Call 736-5940 or 526-2334 jr L. (L A wzX ID) 50. llet By JAMES V.

HIGGINS Gannett News Service Lee A. lacocca remembers the Statue of Liberty rededication in 186 as a gigantic July 4 picnic for the nation. But when he helps reopen nearby Ellis Island this weekend, it'll be like going to More than that, In fact. The Chrysler Corp. chairman, an immigrant's -son who led the privately funded effort to restore both monuments at a cost of $345 million, says Ellis Island can give America a needed morale boost.

More than any other national symbol, lacocca said, the gateway to America for more than 17 million immigrants shows two things: Ethnic and racial diversity are powerful forces for good, and hard work and personal sacrifice are keys to a better life. "Whether it's food, or dress, or the arts, music, whatever the melting pot works," he said in an interview. "If we're losing control of our destiny, it's because we aren't facing up to Work crews By JAMES V. HIGGINS Gannett News Service NEW YORK A graceful stand of young sycamore trees rises around the new entrance of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Someone wanted to cut them down, but was overruled.

"They weren't original," said Stephen Briganti, president of the Ellis Island Foundation. Some foundation workers wanted everything to appear Associated Press photo For Lee lacocca, Ellis Island is sacred ground. He considers himself 'an Ellis Island since both his parents were immigrants. COMING UP TOMORROW: RESTORATION: Somerville firm restores woodwork at Ellis Island. MEMORIES: Raritan resident remembers a special welcome to the United States from Italy.

Immigrants' stories will continue through Wednesday. TUESDAY: HISTORIAN: Metuchen photographer helps record renovation progress. HIDING: Polish immigrant had to hide in haywagon during her B- urney to America. WEDNESDAY: GHOST STORIES: Some eerie things have been siahed on Ellis Island. WALL OF HONOR: The hoopla may be over, but you can still help with the restoration of Ellis Island through the Centennial Wall of Honor.

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