Forgotten Ellis Island

A century ago, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, one of the world's greatest public hospitals was built. Massive and modern, the hospital's 22 state-of-the-art buildings were crammed onto two small islands, man-made from the rock and dirt excavated during the building of the New York subway. The Ellis Island Hospital was where the germs of the world converged, at once welcoming and foreboding - a fateful crossroads for hundreds of thousands of hopeful immigrants. Those nursed to health were allowed entry to America. Those deemed too feeble of body or mind were deported.

Three short decades after it opened, the Ellis Island Hospital was all but abandoned. As America after World War I began shutting its border to all but a favored few, the hospital fell into disuse and decay, and then into emptiness, its medical wards open only to the salt air of New York Harbor.

Producer Lorie Conway was given exclusive access to film the abandoned hospital complex. With many never-before-seen photographs and video, Forgotten Ellis Island is the first film produced about this extraordinary hospital. Narrated by Elliott Gould, the film is a powerful potrayal of the best and worst of America's treatment of its newcomers.