One of New York City’s most haunting ruins has direct views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, but has been strictly off-limits for 60 years. Now the Ellis Island hospital, which treated 1.2 million immigrant patients between 1901 and its abandonment in 1954, is once again open to the public. In conjunction with the reopening, the French street artist JR has installed paste-ups of archival photographs throughout the JR’s Unframed — Ellis Island continues on Ellis Island in the New York Harbor until it disappears. Tours from Save Ellis Island are currently booking through May of 2015 via Statue Cruises.
Tagged as: Ellis Island, Featured, Jr., photography, street art that give a historic, human context to the decrepitude-space.
Nurses on lockers, with rust coming through the paste up, JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
The autopsy theater in the Ellis Island hospital
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
A hallway in the hospital
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
German psychiatrists on a staircase, JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
An inverted Ellis Island ferry, representing one that sank, using the kitchen vent as its hull, JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
The psychopath ward, JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
JR, ‘Unframed — Ellis Island’
Outside the hospital, looking to Manhattan
Tagged as: Ellis Island, Featured, Jr., photography, street art that give a historic, human context to the decrepit space.
By Allison Meyer
