Ellis Island 1976 (14)

Texture.

Peeling paint and flaking plaster--gorgeous!
More from this roll here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCHKSw

Urban decay at its best. I love it! Wow, that was back when you could explore parts of Ellis Island.

There was a brief period that year--maybe a couple of weeks--when the park service opened the island up for tours. I think it might have been an effort to raise funds for the renovation, or maybe to stimulate interest in the project. The parks people erected makeshift barriers to keep people out of certain parts of the buildings and they gave guided tours of spaces where they had put furniture that they found there to make it look sort of like what it might have been when it was in use. The building we saw was mainly a medical facility; it seemed like the most important task of the facility was to deny admission to people who were sick. But there were several buildings and we only saw part of one of them. For my part, the most striking thing was the rotten ferry boat half-sunk in the harbor.