The Historic Trilogy

The Historic Trilogy refers to the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty and the roles they played in American history as the three structures that greeted most immigrants arriving in the New York Harbor area during the wave of immigration of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Statue of Liberty, dedicated in 1886 as a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was originally intended to symbolize a common belief in democracy and quickly became a universal symbol of hope and freedom, especially to immigrants fleeing political and religious persecution in Europe and the Soviet Union. Ellis Island Immigration Station opened in 1892 to process the 12 million immigrants pouring into the New York Harbor area, people who supplied labor and in some cases expertise that fueled the industrial revolution in the United States, and today over half of the people living in the U.S. can trace their ancestry to those immigrants. Completing the trilogy, the CRRNJ Terminal was constructed in 1889 and expanded to its current dimension in 1914 because of increased rail and ferry traffic; besides transporting hundreds of thousands of commuters to New York City, it was used by about two thirds of the immigrants processed on Ellis Island as they made their way to a new life.

Jersey City, New Jersey · United States