Ellis Island: a stepping stone to the tenements

Author: By Karen Yoor, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, September 28, 1997

Page: M1

Section: Travel

Imagine the scene. As a ship enters New York Harbor in 1892, passengers from many lands lean on the rail eagerly scanning the horizon for their first glimpse of Lady Liberty. ``There she is,'' someone shouts as cheers soar skyward. One woman, weary from weeks in the deplorable crowded conditions in steerage, brushes away a tear and remarks that the statue's outstretched arm seems to be waving hello.

First- and second-class passengers underwent simple processing aboard ship and debarked in New York to begin new lives. The hordes traveling below decks had to first prove themselves to the bureaucrats on Ellis Island. As many as 5,000 a day answered questions about health, financial worth, and where and how they planned to live and work.

Those who didn't understand the language found even registering their name intimidating. Mr. Yursantolowicz, who kept proclaiming, ``I am a good man,'' now has a string of descendants called Goodman.

Observing the new arrivals as they climbed the steps, officials placed chalk marks on all who huffed and puffed, deeming their labored breathing to indicate poor health. This alone might lead to rejection at the stairs of separation. One traumatized alien left this message written on a wall: ``Why should I fear the fires of hell. I have been through Ellis Island.''

Today, Ellis Island contains exhibits, mementos carried from the old country, and scenes re-created from the past to portray experiences encountered when they entered America. The heaps of burlap bundles, cardboard cases, trunks, and totes that greet guests in the main hall testify to the diversity of cultures the foreigners brought with them.

Outside, a Wall of Honor, inscribed with the names of those entering through this port, winds through the grounds, evoking tears from some who touch a shaky finger to an ancestor's name.

Most people's fate was determined in a few hours. From a three-pronged staircase, one path lead to deportation to the point of origin. Another conveyed folks to train and ship connections to points across the land. The majority took the steps that enabled them to cross to New York's Lower East Side to begin their quest for citizenship -- in the tenements.

On Manhattan, the early farms and cherry orchards gave way to rows of wooden homes, in turn replaced by narrow brick high-rises, built so close together that they appear to share a common wall.

New York's Lower East Side had one of the highest population densities anywhere. Higher than Bombay. The tenements weren't built as slums, although the mass of humanity interacting with minimal sanitation and privacy soon turned them into such.

A five-story building at 97 Orchard St., constructed during the Civil War, was designed to house 20 families. Irish Catholics, Chinese Buddhists, and Russian Jews, among others, crowded into tiny three-room apartments with no plumbing or running water.

Until cold running water was introduced in 1902, public bathhouses and showers in the schools helped inhabitants attempt to keep clean. An outhouse law finally brought indoor plumbing -- two toilets for every four units.

In 1935, city officials evicted everyone and sealed the condemned building when the landlord refused to comply with the fire code of the time. After remaining vacant for more than 50 years, several apartments have been restored as the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

In the lobby, a scale model urban log cabin shows furnishings and possessions of those who occupied the building during two time periods. The doll house format depicts 1870 tenants on one side and the 1915 residents on the other. A written synopsis gives short profiles of the nationalities, occupations, and other details about these families.

A video uses interviews with former tenants who recall growing up on Orchard Street to explain the lifestyle of the times. Some have contributed family artifacts to help reestablish the atmosphere. Describing the adverse conditions that greeted him, a man said he had heard that in the land of opportunity the streets were paved with gold. Nobody told him his job would be to polish them.

The museum door opens to a dank, dark hallway with a decorative pressed-tin ceiling. The quarter-size hexagonal tiles on the floor were common all over New York for years. Wrapped oak stairs lead up to the first level. Visitors can even examine two renovated furnished apartments and a stabilized ruin that contains no furniture.

The building appears as it was when vacated in 1935 -- bare wooden floors, layers of wallpaper peeled back to reveal different patterns beneath.

With the buildings packed back to back, even the end rooms with windows let in little light, and the windowless interior received only gloomy shadows. The three small chambers yielded 325 square feet of living area, much of that being the kitchen. The original fireplaces were eventually replaced with Franklin stoves for heating and cooking.

Tiny as the space was, many families sublet some of it to boarders to help make ends meet. It is hard to imagine eight to 12 people occupying a unit. Those who worked different shifts made good roommates, as one bed did double duty.

With little ventilation, the smells of yesterday's cooked cabbage, burned beans, and stale cigarette smoke lingered in the halls.

Fire escapes served as children's playgrounds or lovers' retreats for private embraces. Laundry flapped from the steel banisters. Blooming plants added a touch of color to the drab stairs.

One reconditioned unit represents the Gumpertz household. It depicts the lifestyle of a German Jewish family of six in 1870. Furnishings and decor indicate that they were relatively well off. A sewing machine in the corner serves as a reminder that Mrs. Gumpertz operated a home-based needlework business, as did many families, turning living rooms into dimly lit sweatshops.

The Baldesis occupied the second restored unit at the time the building was condemned in 1935. Peeling paint, pitted plaster, and cracked linoleum show the level of deterioration of the premises.

Ellis Island and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum offer sobering testimony to the struggles many overcame to establish life in a land where the inscription on the Statue of Liberty states, ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.'' Proof, indeed, that if they could make it here, they could make it anywhere.

The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; telephone (212) 269-5755. The Statue of Liberty is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The ferry costs $7. There is no charge to visit the museum and statue.

For general Information, call (212) 363-7772; for ferry information, call (212) 363-3200.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is at 97 Orchard St.; telephone (212) 431-0200. Building tours are given Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is $8.

For information on New York, call the New York Convention & Visitors Bureau at (212) 484-1200.