by Jon Cotton, editor

Some tour guides claim the Commonwealth Pier was “Boston’s Ellis Island.” Delilah Webb investigated.  There was a Boston “Ellis Island,” but it was in East Boston, torn down last year.  Its proper name was the East Boston Immigration Station. It processed 230,000 people from 1920 to 1955. Some were Nazis and immediately deported. Italian schemer Charles Ponzi was deported to Italy through here.  Read more.

The Boston World Trade Center building on Commonwealth Pier was built in 1901. The following quotation is from wikipedia:

Constructed in 1901 as a maritime cargo handling facility, Commonwealth Pier was the largest pier building in the world at the time. Able to accommodate the largest vessels that entered the port of Boston, this facility was an integral part of city’s maritime industry, handling both freight and passenger traffic, with rail and truck transportation access right on the pier. Commonwealth Pier subsequently underwent two major renovations and continued to host ships through the 1970s, when changes in cargo transport made the Pier obsolete. In the early 1980s, the Massachusetts Port Authority designated Fidelity Investments and The Drew Company as developers of Commonwealth Pier, which they transformed into the World Trade Center Boston in 1986.

thanks to Delilah Webb and Joe Carroll for contributing to this article and to tour guide truth