Ellis Island Ownership

May 31, 1998  NEW YORK TIMES


Pride, Prejudice and Border War Bluster 
By JOE SHARKEY


(LEN RIDGE , N.J.)With its brassy boardwalk, bar and shopping-mall culture, 
New Jersey is the ancestral home of the attitudinal T-shirt -- the ones that 
say things like "I'm Not as Think as You Drunk I Am" in blurry letters.

Little surprise, then, that Gov. Christine Todd Whitman chose to proclaim
her state's border victory over New York last week by gleefully displaying a
T-shirt that said, "Ellis Island, N.J."

The Governor was celebrating a triumph in a once-obscure dispute between New
Jersey and New York over boundaries in the middle of the Hudson River. In a
6-to-3 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that 24.2 acres of Ellis Island
landfill were actually in New Jersey, and not in New York as everyone had
assumed since the island was expanded starting in the late 19th century to
process the arrival of 12 million immigrants. The original 3.3 acres -- on
which the main hall and immigration museum stand -- remain in New York.

No matter which state map it is on, Ellis Island is a national park, owned
by the Federal Government. Each year 1.6 million tourists visit it. Last
week, reporters dispatched to the island to get reaction to the border
victory found a wall of people who might as well have been wearing those
T-shirts that say, "Whatever."

In short, the public seemed to care little about state sovereignty over the
revered pile of land (and landfill) with the breathtaking views of the
Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline -- the place where the ancestors
of an estimated 40 percent of today's Americans first set foot in the New
World.

On the other hand, politicians and their amen choruses among the news media
seemed to care quite a lot. Mrs. Whitman, for example, proclaimed herself
"delighted that the Supreme Court has officially recognized New Jersey's
place in history," and triumphantly set off for a Republican Party
fund-raiser in Ohio, where she asserted that the Ellis Island victory was
proof that she still had relevance as a politician. A Grudge Match

Never one to remain on the sidelines, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York
City scoffed at the idea that New Jersey had any valid claim on the island's
mythology. Mr. Giuliani said he was certain his immigrant grandfather hadn't
told himself, "I'm coming to New Jersey" when he boarded a ship in Genoa.
"He knew he was coming to the streets of New York," Mr. Giuliani said.

Richard Finnegan, a professor of politics at Stone Hill College in Easton,
Mass., said, "It seems to me there was a lot of 'My state can lick your
state' in all this." Professor Finnegan said he was astonished at "the
exaggerated attention to a matter that most people think is pretty minor at
best."

"I mean, we aren't exactly talking the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act here," he
added.

The Supreme Court case took five years and generated 2,000 documents and
4,000 pages of testimony, prompting Justice David H. Souter to remark
ruefully in his majority opinion on the "succession of legal fees and
expenses arising from interstate boundary disputes." The litigation
undoubtedly cost New Jersey taxpayers far more than can ever be recouped
from the state's newly staked claim to a portion of the sales tax revenue
generated by island's gift and snack shops.

Professor Finnegan said he was intrigued by the Ellis Island news bubble
because of its similarity to another recent scene in modern political
theater. He was referring to a ploy by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of
Vermont, who earlier this year slipped the following words into a routine
bill authorizing Federal money for research on the Great Lakes: "The term
Great Lakes includes Lake Champlain." Thus, Lake Champlain, a comparative
sliver of water between Vermont and New York, suddenly became the sixth
Great Lake -- to the delight of regional politicians, area Chambers of
Commerce and the local news media, but to the horror of national geographers
and historians.

The law was quickly rewritten to withdraw the distinction, but the brouhaha
lifted Mr. Leahy's stock.

In the end, Professor Finnegan said, both the Lake Champlain and Ellis
Island furors were prime examples of what he called "policy as
entertainment."

"This Ellis Island commotion really represents the infantilization of
politics," he added, "driving it down to the seventh-grade level: 'My state
whipped your state.' "

Some reaction in New Jersey seemed to support that notion. "It's about
pride," crowed an editorial celebrating the Ellis Island victory in The Star
Ledger of Newark, New Jersey's largest newspaper.

"This was really about respect, not money," said Bret Schundler, the Mayor
of Jersey City, who nevertheless noted that Ellis Island, N.J., is
potentially part of Jersey City's urban empowerment zone.

History vs. Commerce

The subject of commercial development is barely submerged under any
discussion of change in landlords on Ellis Island. New Jersey has not
indicated whether it might pressure the National Park Service to allow more
development on Ellis Island, N.J. But preservationists have been fretting
for years about the fate of that part of the island, which contains the
medical buildings where the sick and contagious were once treated. In 1992,
preservationists blocked a Park Service plan that would have allowed a
developer to demolish the old buildings and build a hotel or conference
center. Now they fear similar proposals.

The idea of Ellis Island as a national park that needs money for historical
preservation has been swamped by the hoopla in the past week, said Peg
Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

"All the talk has been bragging rights and sales tax and who gets what --
but we're missing the history part," she said. "Ellis Island is the only
national park in the country that some people look on as a development site
waiting for a hotel and conference center."