The holidays were very important on Ellis Island, perhaps the most celebrated was Christmas. It was observed each year at Ellis Island through religious services, festivities, and gift giving. The Roman Catholic Church and the various Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches and denominations offered separate religious services in accordance with their respective traditions.
From a distance, many of the buildings appear to be in pretty decent shape, especially considering they’ve essentially been left to decay since the island officially closed in 1954.
Ellis Island – Parents, children and anyone in the holiday spirit are welcome to attend a book reading and book signing by author Maxinne Rhea Leighton of her beloved children’s book An Ellis Island Christmas (Viking Penguin), a book for children about immigration, recipient of the Marion Vannett Ridgeway Award. This free event will take place on Saturday, December 9, 2017 from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm in the Eastern National Ellis Island bookstore located at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, 1st floor.
The legendary French filmmaker collaborated with the photographer JR to create a wonderful documentary about communities, memory, and her own history.
Agnes Varda knows the value of a camera. The 89-year-old director was a pioneer of French New Wave filmmaking and has strived to find inventive forms of storytelling throughout her career. In her new documentary Faces Places, Varda teams up with the enigmatic photographer and visual artist JR to follow and participate in his Inside Out project, in which he takes portraits of regular people and pastes the pictures, in gigantic-poster format, onto walls and buildings.
Join a special guided tour of the JR art installation Unframed Ellis Island. Your ticket also includes a museum quality poster of the window image “Seven Children” chosen by JR specifically for Save Ellis Island! This tour will lead you through the 25 images by framed French artist JR and in addition will discuss intentions behind the installation as well as the techniques that were used.
Carole Lee Limata, RN, MSN will host a reading and book signing of Ellis Angels, followed by a tour of the un-restored immigrant hospital, the setting used for the book! Ellis Angels is the heartwarming fiction story about the compassionate nurses of Ellis Island, the ladies-in-white, and the loving care they gave their immigrant patients at Ellis Island Hospital in the 1920s.