EDITH BERKMAN, a Polish immigrant and accused “Communist strike agitator,’’ languished here for over a year after trying to organize textile workers in Lawrence. The infamous swindler Charles Ponzi spent several months here awaiting a ruling on his deportation appeal. Criminals, polygamists, anarchists, women deemed to be “of ill repute’’ — anyone the government considered undesirable — were crammed into cell-like dormitories while officials decided whether to let them onto American soil. All this happened at the long-shuttered immigration station on Marginal Street in East Boston, often referred to as “Boston’s Ellis Island.’’ Does anyone really believe this history can be contained in a few “interpretive panels?’’
Built in 1920, the yellow brick station processed about 10 percent of the 230,000 immigrants who arrived through the port of Boston in the early 20th century. During World War II, a new role evolved for the station, as a detention center for Nazi spies, the crews of seized Axis ships, and several Japanese or German-Americans believed to be enemy aliens. The station closed in 1954, the same year as Ellis Island, as the era’s massive wave of immigration ebbed.
The building changed hands several times, but in 1987 it was acquired by the Massachusetts Port Authority, which let it deteriorate. Now it is a rotting hulk, condemned by the Boston Fire Department. Massport, citing its dilapidated condition, wants to tear it down. “It is really a remarkably boring building,’’ said Lowell Richards, Massport’s chief development officer. Noting that it served more as a detention facility than an inspection station, he calls the analogy to Ellis Island “a bit of urban myth.’’
Massport’s poor stewardship of the building galls East Boston residents, and some want to revive an earlier plan to save the structure for a museum of Boston’s immigration experience, or some other public use. One neighbor went so far as to contact Barry Clifford, the shipwreck explorer, who is looking for a place to house his collection of artifacts from the pirate ship Whydah.
The Boston Landmarks Commission will vote July 13 on whether to designate the site a historic landmark, its highest level of protection. The designation would suspend any changes to the structure pending extensive review and approval.
But prospects are dim. The commission staff issued a report in May finding that the immigration station does meet the criteria for designation, since events occurred there that made “an outstanding contribution’’ to “the cultural, political, economic and social history’’ of the city. But the report also noted the building’s poor condition, including “cracking, bulging, water penetration,’’ and other problems, and did not recommend designation. Instead, the staff suggested that interpretative signs be installed along the East Boston HarborWalk, which passes by the site on Marginal Street.
Richards adds that the building stands in a “designated port area’’ intended for marine industrial activity — not museums, visitors centers, or other community uses. The agency plans to create a “lay-down area’’ at the site for adjacent ship repair businesses. The jobs associated with the shipyard, Richards says, are “another priority concern that ought not to be lost track of.’’
Indeed, the immigration station illustrates a larger battle over Boston’s waterfront — whether part of it should remain a gritty, fishy, industrial zone that brings diversity to the city’s economic base, or whether it should be allowed to gentrify like much of the South Boston waterfront. This conflict is clear on Marginal Street, with its chain-link fences and industrial buildings hard by beautifully landscaped waterfront parks, a funky café/art gallery, and priceless views of the skyline.
But even some historians are doubtful about the draw of an immigration museum. Vincent Cannato, associate professor at UMass Boston and author of “American Passage,’’ a history of Ellis Island, notes that Ellis Island opened in 1892, almost 30 years before the East Boston center. “The somewhat romantic view people have is really a pre-1920 view,’’ he said. Later, quota laws began to restrict immigration. “It’s tough to rally the public for something with a more negative connotation.’’ Or, as Richards put it, “you’d have to have one hell of an endowment.’’
Skeptics are correct that launching a new museum is a vast undertaking. One high-profile attempt — the Boston Museum proposed for a coveted parcel on the Greenway — is stuck in limbo, at best. Dreams of Freedom, a museum dedicated to Boston’s immigration history, left its space on Milk Street in 2005 and is now a smaller exhibit in the Prudential building’s Skywalk. Westy Egmont, who created the museum in 2001, is a dedicated advocate for the city’s diverse cultural history. But even he suspects “what could have been a wonderful addition’’ in East Boston will likely be lost. He rightly calls this “a tragedy.’’
Still, East Boston should have some permanent way to commemorate its immigration history — a living history given the waves of newcomers still flocking to the neighborhood. The community suffers from a patchwork of unconnected sites, from the city’s first Jewish cemetery on Wordsworth Street to a historic settlement house in Eagle Hill to the carved stone pillars representing the four compass points at Piers Park. An immigrants’ heritage trail that pulls the sites together would be an achievable — though insufficient —alternative to a museum. Massport ought to help make that happen.
What Boston needs is a comprehensive cultural master plan to bring some coherence to the willy-nilly process of siting new museums and other institutions. Cities like Pittsburgh and Seattle have used such planning documents to attract capital and achieve cooperation among sometimes competing institutions. Until then, treasures like the immigration station will continue to be lost to neglect, abuse, or confusion.
Susan Brauner, the East Boston resident who tried to interest Barry Clifford in the immigration station, laments what she considers a sense of resignation about its fate. “I think there will be a lot more sentiment the day the wrecking ball shows up,’’ she said.
Renee Loth’s column appears regularly in the Globe. 
