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In early 2002, I photographed the interiors of the decaying buildings on the un-restored south side of Ellis Island. These buildings served prosaic and often sad purposes: they were the wards and medical facilities. They had a haunting beauty, with their subtle, almost monochromatic colors: greens and rust, old brick and peeling plaster. Ellis Island also had personal significance for me: two of my grandparents passed through the immigrant processing center when they came from Europe in the early years of the 20th century.