The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 176

THE TAMPA TRIBUNE-TIMES, Sunday, June 29, 1 986 11 -I 1886 1986 i mi ii to II to I lvai'tirt Kill li I "....1 Photo provided by National Park Service This 1905 photo shows the main building on Ellis Island In New York Harbor, which was the primary processing station for immigrants to the United States. APNatlonal Park Service photo A Hungarian mother and her four children pose upon their arrival in 1 909 to Ellis Island. Between 1 892 and 1 924, 1 6 million immigrants sought entrance to America through Ellis Island. Hsllaunid Hope or 4 Hall of Tears' 3 By MARK PERKISS United Press International NEW YORK Scaffolding and "friendly ghosts" inhabit the cavernous tiled "Hall of Tears" on Ellis Island where ancestors of 40 percent of all Americans first touched U.S. soil.

From 1892 to 1954, when the 27.5-acre island in New York Harbor was abandoned by the federal government, 17 million immigrants landed at Ellis Island for processing, before being admitted to this country or being returned to their native lands. 1 A $113 million project to restore the northern side of the national historical site and turn it into a museum of immigration began in 1984 and is now at the halfway point, said Michael Adlerstein, the National Parks Service project director for Ellis Island. Most of the restoration and preservation are being done in the Registry Room, the large, vaulted ceiling room in the main building referred to by the 17 million immigrants as the "Great Hall" or, for those who were denied entry, "Hall of Tears." "The Great Hall Is the heart of Ellis Island," Adlerstein said. "That's the place where the immigrants started when they got to this country." Restoring the Great Hall, which is scheduled to be completed in 1988, has been an emotional experience "because my mother came to this country through Ellis Island, and many of the workers here have relatives who landed here," he their mostly European homelands. Among the people who passed through Ellis Island were composer Irving Berlin, comedian Bob Hope and football coach Knute Rockne.

After arriving, immigrants were herded up flights of stairs to the Great Hall for testing. Doctors examined them as they climbed and chalked an on those who limped; those who breathed heavily were marked with an for heart conditions. Immigrants with certain illnesses were quarantined in a hospital on the island until officials said they were well enough to enter the country. After the medical tests came the legal test, consisting of two-minute interviews done through interpreters. Immigrants were asked their names, dates and places of birth, destination, relatives and means of support Bribery of officials was common in the early years of Ellis Island.

The federal immigration station on Ellis Island was built in 1891 and opened a year later. Prior to 1891, immigration policy was set by the states because the federal government had not yet passed an Immigration law. That law passed in 1891 named Ellis Island as the first federal immigration station. Before the opening of Ellis Island, immigrants to New York landed at Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan. Ellis Island was built when the Manhattan facility became too small for the number of Immigrants.

Chairman Lee Iacocca, who was forced to resign as head of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial Commission over a question of conflict of interest As many as 5,000 immigrants a day were herded through the Great Hall at the height of the tide of immigration early in the century. In 1907, more than 1 million people were processed at Ellis Island. Most Immigrants spent about five hours on Ellis Island before heading to Manhattan or other destinations. Entry to the United States after a three-week trip in steerage compartments in the bottom of steamships depended on two tests: medical and legal. Passing meant entry and failing meant delays or worse.

Anarchists, prostitutes, the incurably ill and others were denied entry. Of the 17 million who came to Ellis Island, only 250,000 were returned to said. "There are a lot of friendly ghosts here." In addition to work on the Great Hall, the Baggage Room, where immigrants left their luggage while they were processed, and the Railroad Ticket Office in the main building, where they bought tickets for Manhattan or points west, will be restored to the way they looked between 1918 and 1924, Adlerstein said. Exhibits of artifacts brought and made by immigrants will be placed in each wing of the building, he said. The project also calls for two movie theaters to tell the story of immigration to America and a studio where the oral history of those who worked on or passed through Ellis Island will be recorded.

Plans for the southern part of Ellis Island are incomplete and have been the subject of a dispute between the Interior Department and Chrysler 71 i i Erlka Revy of Tampa who says she "chose this country because I wanted to live here all my life" saw the statue for the first time shortly after she arrived in New York from Brazil. Friends took Revy, her husband and two children to Liberty Island on a cold and cloudy day In the early spring. "The whole family stood there together. It was really bigger than we ever imagined. It represented somehow the strength of the country, I think.

"We were amazed. We really almost cried be- Stella Sanchez, 81, came through Ellis Island twice once when she was a year old in 1905 when her parents immigrated to the United States from Sicily, and once at age 9 when her family returned to America after a year of living in Sicily again. On their way past the Statue of Liberty on that second trip, she says, she cried along with nearly everyone else on the ship, and her mother bent down and kissed the ground when they docked. What does the Statue of Liberty mean to her? "She's our mother taking care of us," says the Jewish Towers resident who started making tjri. Lady Liberty's torch ignites perpetual and passionate patriotism in some people, particularly those who weren't born under its glow or who strayed from it and then returned home.

She brings tears to the eyes of Olga Nenos, a Greek immigrant, now living in Tampa, who associates the statue with all of the good things that have come to her in America. Thai immigrant Pornchai Netayavichitr marvels at Liberty's size. First impressions of the Statue of Liberty are lasting impressions. In the accounts that follow, residents of the Tampa area share theirs. Stories by Patty Ryan, Karen Long and Jean Nathan Stella Sanchez It means freedom.

It means you clears in Ybor City when she was 12, can. have something to eat no matter what It means home." Erika Revy cause it was beautiful. It's like a smiling face, that was my impression. She is a gracious woman, like a mother looking over her family." Revy says her son, Peter Karolyi who was 16 when the family visited the statue was moved in his own way by the sight. "He said, 'How can I serve this country to show them my appreciation that they treat us so As a result his mother says, Karolyi served in the Marine Corps for 44 years.

"He went to Vietnam, and he came back. Thank goodness." To this day, Olga Nenos of Tampa breaks into tears of pride when she remembers the first time she saw Lady Liberty 37 years ago. "I was up to the hand. They were little tiny stairs, but I made it I've been there twice," says Nenos, who came to the United States alone from Greece as a young woman. The statue made her feel proud.

"Very proud," she says. "It made me cry Coming to America from Greece had been her dream. Her father was killed In World War II, she says. In Greece, she was an orphan, everything that I never had," she explains I met my husband here." Renate Winkelmann Marsh, 44, now working as a work coordinator at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church In Tampa, came to this country In 1962 from West Berlin on the ocean-liner Bremen. "It was quite impressive for me to come Into the harbor there." She said seeing the statue brought home the finality of her "scary" decision to come to settle In this country.

As the ship came into view of the statue, Marsh recalls. "Everyone was very auiet everv- Nenos In America, "I have f'freedom, everything. a i Albert Alexis Albert Jean Alexis, 26, was born In Port Au Prince, Haiti, and came to this country to join his political refugee parents in 1971. In 1972 he saw the Statue of Liberty "probably the most Impressive thing I did ever see." "It was impressive not just In meaning, but also in size," says Alexis. He subsequently moved to Tampa, where he is an employment specialist with Lutheran Ministries of Florida and a weekend disc Jockey at WTMP.

But he says he still visits the statue almost every year, returning to the site of "my most important childhood memory." Pornchai Netayavichitr, 38, came to this country from Bangkok, Thailand, In 1973. He and his wife, Huttaya, originally settled In Arlington, but later moved to Tampa, where they own and run the Thai Hut on South Dale Mabry Highway. Netayavichitr recalls, "The first thing I wanted to see when I got to New York City (in 1975) was to see the (Statue of) Liberty. We took the small boat they have to the (Statue of) Liberty." He sootted the torch first what he calls "the Renate Marsh one went to that side of the ship to watch the statue. There was no screaming or yelling, even after five days on the water.

"I had millions of thoughts in my head when I saw it One was 'Will I really be "We were really Impressed. I looked at her, and all the questions came to my head about the future: 'Did I do the right 'Why did I come It was a neat feeling to see her, to have finally made it" Sadie Wahnon, 79, was 4 when she and her mother arrived in Ellis Island from Bulgaria on the Fourth of July, 1911. She was 12 when she first visited the Statue of Liberty. She was a little older when she visited once more and "felt the thrill of knowing that I belonged to America." She says the Statue of Liberty "stands for everything that's good: for liberty, for happiness, for a feeling of love. I'm thrilled when I see It" 4 I Sadie Wahnon Irving Garber, 85, a retired dairy salesman from Yonkers, N.Y., was Just 9 months old when he, his parents and younger sister were checked through Ellis Island after coming to the United States from Russia.

He remembers seeing the Statue of Liberty first as an 8-year-old. And he says he spent the next 70 years "seeing her from every angle." "She's a swell girl. She's something special. She has to be something special. She lit the path for people coming to America.

She faced the ocean and all those steam ships heavily laden Tony Plzzo, noted author and historian, Isn't an Immigrant (he was born In Tampa), but he felt like one that morning In 1939. He saw Lady Liberty from onboard the Aquatanla, which had delivered him from Hitler and blackouts. He was a student abroad for the first time, who had toured Europe In the year that brought World War II. "I remember on the morning we came Into New York Harbor, It was a misty morning, and all of a sudden, here appeared the Statue of Liberty," he recalls. "It made me realize there Netayavichitr light for the people to enjoy living In the world." Although he had seen pictures of the statue In Thai newspapers and magazines, In person, he says, the statue was very different.

"I was surprised by how big she Is. I wondered how they build the big statues like that She looked so beautiful. I never saw one like that In Thailand. I thought It was the most wonderful thing In the world. Everybody can recognize It at first sight the symbols of freedom and of the USA." His wife, Huttaya, said the statue drew the Netayavlchitrs back three times.

"The third time we took our baby. We wanted to take a picture with the little one." Irving Garber with people. She welcomed them. "Only In a country like this could you have a statue like that welcoming everybody from around the globe. What other country welcomes other people from other countries the way we do?" Tony Pizxo was no place like America.

It was just a good feeling, to be back home,.