I toured two Ellis Island hospitals that have been abandoned for almost 65 years. Here's what they're like inside.

Frank Olito/ Insider

• When Ellis Island was in operation during the early 1900s, immigrants who were deemed too sick or disabled to be admitted into the US were sent to hospitals on the south side of the island. 
• Today the hospitals are abandoned. I took a tour of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital and the Contagious and Infectious Disease Hospital.
• Inside, the walls are crumbling and the ceilings are falling down, but most of the structures have remained intact. 
• The morgue still has the cooling chambers where dead bodies were kept, and the chief of medicine's house still stands on the edge of the island. 
• The hospital was known for its pavilion wards, which were large rooms that housed 20 patients with the same illness. Today, the large rooms are empty and deteriorating. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

For many immigrants coming to America, Ellis Island was the entryway into their new lives. The visit to the island off the coast of Manhattan would be a sojourn for most, but 2% of immigrants never made it to the mainland. 

Instead, they were turned away and sent back to their home countries, while others were sent to the hospitals on Ellis Island to be treated for diseases like measles and tuberculosis.

Today, Ellis Island is a bustling museum that welcomes 4 million tourists each year. But the hospitals on the south side of the island are closed to the general public and have been left in ruin for 65 years.

I gained access to the hospitals through a special hard hat tour operated by Save Ellis Island, a nonprofit organization devoted to rehabilitating the island. Here's what it's like inside the abandoned and dilapidated ruins. 

Aboard the ferry from Manhattan to Ellis Island, I began retracing the steps so many immigrants took over 100 years ago.

The ferry left Manhattan from Battery Park, and the first stop was the Statue of Liberty. For the immigrants coming to the US, the Statue of Liberty was their first glimpse of America. But their ships didn't stop there. Instead, they stopped at Ellis Island, a processing hub where every immigrant had to be examined and cleared for entry into the country.

To really follow in the immigrants' footsteps, I decided not to get off at the Statue Liberty — which has been converted into a park for tourists — and instead head directly for Ellis Island.

From the ferry, I caught my first glimpse of the hospital that now stands in ruins near Ellis Island’s main building.

The hospital complex consists of the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital and the Contagious and Infectious Disease Hospital.

As I approached the main building, I was reminded that Ellis Island was a source of hope for many immigrants.

Opening in 1892, Ellis Island processed 12 million immigrants throughout the 60 years it was open. In its peak year, 1907, about 1.25 million immigrants were admitted through the island. 

See Also:

• 8 things to do when you first meet someone if you want them to remember you forever
• A look inside the abandoned and crumbling Băile Neptun resort, where Roman god Hercules and Austrian royalty reportedly once visited
• 12 colleges around the US that people believe are haunted