- published: 05 Jul 2014
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Ellis Island is an island in New York Harbor and 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 landfill 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. A 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found most of the island to be part of New Jersey. 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.
Ellis Island is located in Jersey City, New Jersey and is situated in the Upper New York Bay east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island. The island has a land area of 27.5 acres (11.1 ha), most of which was created through land reclamation. The original portion of the island is 3.3 acres (1.3 ha) and is an exclave of New York City, while reclaimed areas are part of Jersey City. The entire island has been owned and administered by the U.S. federal government since 1808. It is currently operated by the National Park Service.
Vito Andolini Corleone is a fictional character and the main character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, as well as Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, where he was portrayed by Marlon Brando in The Godfather and by Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II. Premiere Magazine listed Vito Corleone as the greatest movie character in history. He was also selected as the 10th greatest movie character by Empire Magazine.
In Puzo's novel, Vito Corleone is Capo di tutti capi and the head of the Corleone crime family, the most powerful Mafia family in New York City. He is depicted as an ambitious Sicilian immigrant who moves to Hell's Kitchen and builds a Mafia empire, retaining (and strictly adhering to) his own personal code of honor. Upon his death at the end of the novel, his youngest son, Michael, becomes the Don of the Corleone family. Vito has two other sons, Santino ("Sonny") and Frederico ("Fredo" or "Freddie"), as well as a daughter, Constanzia ("Connie"), all of whom play major roles in the story. He also informally adopts another son, Tom Hagen, who grows up to become the Family's consigliere.
On the first day of janurary, 1892
they opened Ellis Island,
and they let the people through
and the first to cross the threshold of the isle of hope and tears,
was Annie Moore from Ireland,
who was only 15 years
Chorus
isle of hope, isle of tears,
isle of freedom, isle of fears
but its not the isle you've left behind,
that isle of hunger, isle of pain,
isle you'll never see again,
but the isle of home is always on your miiiiind.
in a little bag she carried
all her past and history,
and her dreams for the future
in the land of liberty
and courage is the passport,
when your old world disappears
but theirs no future in the past when your only 15 years
Chorus
when they closed down Ellis island in 1943
17 million people
had come there for sanctury
and in the spring when i came here
and i stepped down off its piers
i thought of how it must have felt when your only
15 years