New York, New Jersey Go Toe to Toe A Long-Simmering Feud Erupts over Which State Can Call Ellis Island Its Own

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Between 1892 and 1954, the first steps on US soil for some 12 million immigrants were on this small, mostly manmade island surrounded by the Hudson River.

Most people, if they thought about it at all, considered those first steps to be New York steps. For even though it is closer to New Jersey (1,300 feet) than to New York (2 miles), Ellis Island had been in New York City's jurisdiction ever since an 1834 agreement between the two neighboring states.

But New Jersey wants to right what it considers a faulty historical record. And it has taken its contest of Ellis Island's sovereignty to the US Supreme Court in a magnified version of a property-line dispute between …