Step off the ferry at Ellis Island right now and you will find yourself walking straight through an active construction site. Scaffolding hugs the limestone towers of the Main Immigration Building, workers weave through the Registry Room and galleries and yet the National Museum of Immigration is still open for business. The museum is in the middle of a two-part overhaul that pairs a privately funded interior reimagining with a federally backed exterior rehabilitation. Crews are swapping out aging heating and air systems and carving out new exhibit spaces while visitors continue to stream in by boat, often passing workers on the way to the Great Hall. The goal is to broaden the island’s story and modernize its research tools without shutting the public out.
The Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation is leading a roughly $100 million campaign to reimagine the museum, reworking more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space, expanding the family-history center and adding new media pieces, according to the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation. The U.S. Department of the Interior says the National Park Service awarded an approximately $17.7 million contract, funded through the Great American Outdoors Act, to rehabilitate the Main Immigration Building’s exterior masonry and clerestory windows, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.
What Crews Are Building
Inside the Main Building, contractors have ripped out old infrastructure to clear space for a new three-story stair that will connect the museum’s floors and replace nonfunctional escalators, and they are outfitting galleries with interactive media and improved accessibility. Essential life-safety upgrades are happening at the same time: HVAC, electrical and fire-safety systems are being modernized so the building can handle heavy visitor traffic for decades to come. The work is being phased so that most exhibits stay open while construction continues, and the contractor lists the renovations as on track to wrap in 2026. Phelps Construction Group provides project details.
How Construction Affects Visits
Park officials say visitors should be ready for noise, equipment and short temporary closures in parts of the Main Building, but that core galleries will remain accessible throughout the work. The National Park Service says protective sidewalk sheds and interior scaffolding have gone up and that crews are phasing work so tours, school groups and researchers can still use much of the site. The National Park Service notes that schedules and closures may shift as projects move along.
Records And Memory Get A Boost
The Foundation is using the overhaul to strengthen the museum’s research mission. The Records Discovery Center will add a mini-theater, green-screen experiences and roughly 50 percent more public research stations, while the arrival-records database is being broadened to include additional ports of entry. The American Immigrant Wall of Honor has been enlarged to accept new inscriptions, part of an effort to turn the island into a living archive of family histories that is more reflective of modern migration flows. The Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation has details on those changes and donor programs.
The Long View
The Main Immigration Building that stands today opened in 1900 after the original wooden processing station burned in 1897, and during the peak years of mass migration more than 12 million arrivals were processed at the Port of New York, according to National Park Service history. Over time, the island has served as a hospital, a wartime detention site and, since 1990, a museum. The current projects aim to present those overlapping roles in clearer, more accessible ways for contemporary visitors. The National Park Service history pages lay out that arc.
Practical Details For Visitors
Ferries to Liberty and Ellis depart from Battery Park in Manhattan and from Liberty State Park in Jersey City, and the concessionaire reported more than 3.7 million riders in a recent peak year as it extended hours to handle summer demand. Travelers should plan for intermittent delays at the museum entrance and should check concession or park alerts before heading out. Statue City Cruises posted related service notes last year.
When the two projects finish later this year, curators hope the reworked museum will give visitors a more complete, multi-era view of migration, from early arrivals to modern flows, while improved research tools let more families trace their stories at scale. For now, Ellis Island offers a familiar mix of history and visible change: preserved architecture, new exhibits and the steady work of crews reimagining how the nation remembers its arrivals.
