ST. GEORGE — A new permanent installation at the Staten Island Courthouse traces the location's history as the borough's former quarantine site for immigrants with the help of well-known residents — including the lead singer of the New York Dolls.
"The Passage: A Moving Installation," by artist Mary Miss, was officially completed Monday and features 16 columns with text about the history of the former New York Marine Hospital, where the courthouse currently sits.
"When I found out the history of this site and considered how most people would get to it if they didn't live on Staten Island, it occurred to me that it was a really interesting opportunity on site to talk about immigration in the 19th century," Miss said.
"There's so much discussion about immigration, and it was a very contentious issue at the time where this quarantine facility was located."
The New York Marine Hospital was used a quarantine site to house sick passengers immigrating to the United States from 1799 until it was burned down by an angry mob worried it was bringing disease to the neighborhood in 1858.
Any ship that entered into New York had to stop in the borough for medical inspection, and the sick would remain at the quarantine until they got better or died and were buried nearby.
"They were often separated from their family and it was a fairly difficult situation," said Miss, who researched the site after being approached by the city to submit a proposal for an installation in 2009. "It was probably a pretty unpleasant place for the people that had to be there."
The site was later turned into a municipal parking garage, and during construction of the courthouse in 2001, archeologists found 100 skeletal remains and thousands more partial remains dating back to the hospital.
The remains were eventually buried in an underground vault at the courthouse in 2014.
Each 6-foot-tall column included in the installation features two pieces of glass — one clear and one red — where people can look inside to read a portion of the site's history, the artist explained.
The columns also contain a phone number people can call and listen to a recorded portion of the site's past, read by locals like Assemblyman Matthew Titone, former Borough President James Molinaro and David Johansen, lead singer of the the New York Dolls and of Buster Poindexter fame.
"People are standing around in front of a courthouse, this gives them something they could be doing," Miss said. "There's an interesting enough cast of characters reading the piece of the history."
The columns were designed based on the shape of Serpentine rocks, the oldest rock that can be found near the surface of the borough.
Miss — known for her public works focused on the environment they're installed in — said the columns were completed last year in Seattle, but stayed in storage because of numerous delays at the courthouse itself, which finally opened last year.
Crews installed the columns in four days last month, and the project was officially deemed finished at a Design Commission meeting on Monday, a spokesman for the Department of Cultural Affairs said.
Miss said the columns are part of a larger planned piece that will trace the journey of immigrants to New York in the 19th century, with installations starting on Staten Island Ferry boats and inside the ferry terminal.
"There's a large plan that I have which is to have information available as to why people were leaving the countries they were leaving," Miss said.
"On the ferries themselves [the piece will] be able to tell the stories of the passages, in the terminal discussing the arrival and at the quarantine facility telling about the quarantine."
