Beginning in 1799, the present site of the National Lighthouse Museum on the North Shore of Staten Island, was the location of the New York Marine Hospital, also known as The Quarantine. Long before the construction of the famous processing center on Ellis Island, immigrants found to be in poor or questionable health were segregated from other immigrants, and the local population, in the hospital. The Quarantine was New York’s first line of defense against immigrant-borne infectious diseases like smallpox, cholera, typhus, and yellow fever. As many as 1,500 detainees could be accommodated in the hospital at one time.

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Today, Building 11 has been renovated and is now the home of the National Lighthouse Museum Educational Resource Center. Several of the original buildings including the lamp shops, barracks and administration building still stand onsite, but need major renovation. The present owner of the site, the New York City Economic Development Corporation has contracted for the development of the entire land tract. Plans for the Lighthouse Point development project include residential and commercial space with renovation and reuse of several of the site’s historic structures. The National Lighthouse Museum, the cultural component of the site development, plans to expand into Building 10.