Ellis Island, 1901

Salone degli Incanti, the old fish market — Trieste, Italy

On screen

Nine-year-old Vito Andolini arrives in New York alone on an immigrant ship and sees the Statue of Liberty from the deck. In the vast hall of Ellis Island he doesn’t answer the clerk, who writes down his village as his surname: Vito Corleone. The doctors find he has smallpox, and he is sent to quarantine for three months. Alone in his room, at a window facing the statue, he sings quietly.

The place today

Trieste’s central fish market was built in 1913 on the waterfront, with a clock tower that looks like a belfry. Its name, “hall of the auctions”, comes from the fish auctions once held there. Today it is a civic exhibition hall, and the city aquarium is in the same complex.

Did you know? According to Italian Wikipedia, the immigrants’ medical inspection was filmed in Trieste’s old fish market, some 6,800 km from the real Ellis Island.

🔗 Earlier in the story · The Godfather in SicilyThe manhunt — Forza d’Agrò Cathedral

Sources: Wikipedia IT · movie-locations · Italy for Movies