Why go
Follow the sequence from the Battery to the island to understand more than a change of address. Castle Garden handled millions of arrivals before federal control began; Ellis Island was built as immigration increased and the national government took direct responsibility for inspection.
The full story
Castle Garden, at the Battery in Lower Manhattan, served as New York State’s immigration depot from 1855 to 1890. Around eight million people passed through it. During the late nineteenth century, more people arrived as political, religious and economic pressures drove migration from Europe. Federal control of immigration replaced the earlier state system, and officials chose Ellis Island for a new station. While construction proceeded, the Barge Office at the Battery handled arrivals. The first Ellis Island station, built of wood, opened on January 1, 1892. Annie Moore, an Irish teenager traveling with her brothers, was the first immigrant processed there. More than 12 million people would pass through the station before it closed in 1954. The Battery and Ellis Island therefore mark consecutive stages in one city’s arrival story. Visiting both gives the waterfront a clearer chronology: the familiar Main Building belongs to a later, larger federal system.