I made this image through a window in the great hall that once held hundreds of European immigrants as they awaited entry into the United States. Manhattan is only a few miles across the harbor, but to many immigrants it must have seemed very far away. They had to wait in long lines to be questioned, examined, and cleared for entry, and some of them were turned away and sent back to where they came from. In this image, the Empire State Building, once the tallest building on earth, dominates the midtown skyline. By the time the Empire State Building was built in 1930, Ellis Island no longer processed immigrants. It was then used as a deportation center, closing in 1954. They were left to decay. The building on the left remains a ruin – only the main building has been restored to its original appearance, and reopened as an immigration museum in 1990.