Published since 2005. San Francisco is a city that belongs to the people of the world. Hence this blog has a global focus. The name "Sam Spade's San Francisco" refers to an exciting era in the City's history, the time of Dashiell Hammett's fictional gumshoe and San Francisco character, Sam Spade. My name is Tom Dunn and I edit the blog. I'm not as exciting as Sam Spade, but I am definitely a San Francisco character.Contact or on Twitter -- Search blog below.
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Monday, January 26, 2009
Angel Island Restored Historic Immigration Station Opens Presidents Day Weekend
On Presidents Day weekend, Feb. 15, 2009, the public will have access for the first time to all areas of the historically significantImmigration Stationbarracks onAngel Island State Park.
The $15 million restoration is phase one of a $65 million, five-phase project to preserve and rehabilitate Angel Island’s historic U.S. Immigration Station, the “Ellis Island of the West.”
The facility opened on Jan. 21, 1910 and closed in 1940 after a fire destroyed the administration building. During that time more than one million individuals were processed through the center; historians estimate that 175,000 Chinese immigrants and 150,000 Japanese immigrants were processed at Angel Island. Because of discriminatory legislation enacted in the 1880s Chinese immigrants were detained on average two to three weeks; the longest recorded stay was about two years.
Their frustration and fear left an indelible legacy: hundreds of poems etched into the barrack walls. Discovered by a park ranger in the 1970s the poems had been painted over. Beneath those carvings were even more poems written in pencil and ink. One unknown author wrote, “Imprisoned in the wooden building day after day, my freedom is withheld; how can I bear to talk about it?”
The Immigration Station was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1997 and listed as one of “America’s 11 Most Endangered” historic places in 1999 by theNational Trust for Historic Preservation.
Ferry service to Angel Island is available from Fisherman’s Wharf,Tiburonand Alameda/Oakland.
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