Ellis Island News

The National Park Service has reset its sights on a new hub for tourists headed from Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.For several years, crowds have clogged the waterfront promenade in Battery Park while they wait to clear security and board ferries to the monuments in the harbor. The imposition has been compounded since 9/11 by the large tents that house the screening checkpoints and block views of the statue.

Assemblyman Gordon M. Johnson, Nelson T. Albano and Matthew W.

As the ferry from Manhattan sidles up to the dock at Ellis Island, the imposing arches and grand towers of the main building make it almost impossible for visitors not to feel like they are among the huddled masses who passed through here a century ago on their way to a new life in America. But now, the National Park Service's Ellis Island museum and other institutions across the country want to do more than re-create the immigrant experience of the past.