Her two younger brothers elbovad her ahead of a burly German. A longshoreman shouted, "Ladies first." As a result, Annie Moore was presented with a ten-dollar gold coin and immortalized as the first immigrant to set foot on Ellis Island, on her fifteenth birthday, January 1, 1892.The arrival was accurately reported, as was her gracious response to the gold piece presented by the nation's superintendent of immigration as the federal government assumed responsibility for supervising the influx of foreigners (before then, it was left largely to the states; New York welcomed them, more or less, at Castle Garden, in what is now Battery Park).The true story of Annie Moore was discovered by genealogist Megan Smolenyak. Smolenyak (a genealogist's dream, she married a previously unrelated Smolenyak) teamed up with Brian G. Anderson, the New York City commissioner of records, to discover the iconic Moore in 2006.Disembarking from steerage after twelve days on the steamship Nevada from Cobh, Ireland, Annie joined her parents, who had arrived several years earlier, in a five-story brick tenement at 32 Monroe Street in Manhattan. She later moved to a nearby apartment on the Bowery. Annie's father was a longshoreman. She married a bakery clerk. They had at least eleven children. Five survived to adulthood and three had children of their own. She died of heart failure in 1924 at forty seven. Her brother Anthony, who arrived with Annie, died in his twenties in the Bronx and was temporarily buried in a potter's field.Annie lived and died within a few square blocks on the Lower East Side, where some of her descendants resided until recently. She is buried alongside the famous and forgotten in a Queens cemetery. Though she lived a poor immigrant's life, many of her descendants, who include an investment counselor and a PhD, prospered. "She sacrificed herself for future generations," Smolenyak said, describing Moore's descendants as "poster children" for immigrant America, with Irish, Jewish, Italian, and Scandinavian surnames. "It's an all-American family," she said, "Annie would have been proud."&nbsp;As one guidebook says: "Annie Moore came to America bearing little more than her dreams; she stayed to help build a country enriched by diversity."TEXT FROM SAM ROBERTS 101 OBJECTS

The 1st immigrant on Ellis Island

Ellis Island has had numerous names throughout its history. Its current iteration was established in the 1770s, when Samuel Ellis became the island's private owner. The Federal Government purchased the island in the early 1800s to fortify its harbor defenses, and when it took over immigration control from the State in 1890, immigrant arrivals were shifted to Ellis Island. The original 1892 wooden structures actually burned down five years after being erected.

Ellis Island Immigration Station

The Dutch bought Kioshk as a gift for Michael Reyniersz Pauw, who had helped found New Netherland. When the Dutch settled the area as part of New Netherland, the three islands in Upper New York Bay—Liberty, Black Tom, and Ellis Islands—were given the name Oyster Islands, alluding to the large oyster population nearby. The present-day Ellis Island was thus called "Little Oyster Island". Little Oyster Island was then sold to Captain William Dyre c.?1674, then to Thomas Lloyd on April 23, 1686. The island was then sold several more times, including to Enoch and Mary Story. During colonial times, Little Oyster Island became a popular spot for hosting oyster roasts, picnics, and clambakes because of its rich oyster beds. By the 1760s, Little Oyster Island became a public execution site for pirates, with executions occurring at one tree in particular, the "Gibbet Tree".&nbsp;

Little Oyster Island was acquired by Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker and merchant possibly from Wales, residing at 1 Greenwich St, to build a tavern for local fisherman.

The city deeded that land to the state for public defense purposes. the state allotted $100,000 for fortifications on Bedloe's, Ellis, and Governors Islands, as well as the construction of Castle Garden (now Castle Clinton) along the Battery on Manhattan island. The military conflicts failed to occur, and by 1805, the fort had become rundown

Ceded to the United States for $10,000, used by the military for almost 80 years. In the early 1800s, the young American government realized that Ellis Island, with its clear view of the entrance to New York Harbor, had strategic value as a defense post. Since the British had easily invaded New York with very little resistance during the American Revolution, the protection of New York became a top priority for the new government. Preceding the War of 1812, the United States War Department constructed Fort Gibson (named after Colonel James Gibson who was fatally wounded in the British Siege of Fort Erie) on Ellis Island. Fort Gibson consisted of a barracks for a small garrison, a powder magazine, and a battery of guns located along the island's eastern edge.

 In 1891, the federal government assumed responsibility from the states for regulating immigration through the Immigration Act of 1891, which established the Office of Immigration (later the Bureau of Immigration) to administer immigration affairs. The government also appropriated money to build a new immigrant inspection station on Ellis Island. In 1891, the federal government assumed responsibility from the states for regulating immigration through the Immigration Act of 1891, which established the Office of Immigration (later the Bureau of Immigration) to administer immigration affairs. The government also appropriated money to build a new immigrant inspection station on Ellis Island. 

The Supreme Court rules in favor of New Jersey's claim to the landfilled portion of the island, and New Jersey owns Ellis Island&nbsp;

 Ellis Island is an island that is located in Upper New York Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey, United States. It was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. Long considered part of New York, a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey.[4] The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island. 

Emigrants coming up the board-walk from the barge, which has taken them off the steamship company's docks, and transported them to Ellis Island. The big building in the background is the new hospital just opened. The ferry-boat seen in the middle of the picture, runs from New York to Ellis Island.  

At Ellis Island, men and women with bundles and suitcases standing on a dock with New York City on the other side of the Hudson River. 

 A man waiting, with others in queue behind him, at the registration desk in the immigration station on Ellis Island; an immigration official is seated at the desk.  

View Southwest North elevation and stack

View North showing South elevation and harbor

View Northeast West and South elevation

View West, East elevation and base of stack

'Welcome to the land of freedom' An ocean steamer passing the Statue of Liberty Scene on the steerage deck 

 After 9/11, there were several years of public debate, as New Yorkers worked to figure out how best to rebuild the World Trade Center site. It was necessary to take some time to develop a plan that reconciled the various constituencies` individual goals. In August 2002 The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) announced a competition for a master plan. Studio Daniel Libeskind design was selected in February 2003. The fourteen-acre WTC site will contain, in addition to the Memorial and the Museum, a Visitor Orientation Center, a new PATH train station, a Subway station, an underground retail concourse, an underground road network with security screening areas, five new office towers, and a Performing Arts Center. The WTC Masterplan serves as both the conceptual basis and the technical foundation for the entire complex re-development of ground zero. The Masterplan defines the spirit of the approach to re-building and creates a meaningful conceptual framework for the site. It also defines the spatial organization of all elements of the development within the site with an emphasis on the human experience and the public realm.The Masterplan dictates the location and massing of each program element, building height and relative size, as well as proximity and relationship to one another. The WTC Masterplan also supplies the framework for the site`s infrastructure, transportation, sustainability standards and security strategy and lays out the functional relationship between all the site elements with respect to the surrounding context of the immediate neighbourhoods and the surrounding city. 

Ground Zero

World Trade Center Site

Ellis Island

 Historian Barry Moreno explains Ellis Island's history as an immigration station and eventually a deportation center. He speaks in detail about the immigrants' experience within the building as they were processed through the center, in addition to speaking about how United States immigration laws shaped Ellis Island's role as an immigration station. 

 Arthur Platt presents the Lower Harbor segment of the tour, beginning with Ellis Island and ending with One Madison Park. 

The Supreme Court hears its 1st case over the boundary between the two states, a dispute left unsettled for the next 150 years when NJ sued for ownership of Ellis Island