802
Opinion of the Court
City Ordinances will not apply to the same in regard to building matters." N. Y. Exh. 775, sheet OO. From 1890 to 1911, however, the federal spokesmen did not stop at saying merely that the Island was not part of New York; in these years the federal Harbor Line Board prepared surveys of recommended Island pierhead and bulkhead lines for the approval of the Secretary of War, all of which were titled "Pier-head & Bulkhead Lines for Ellis' Island, New Jersey, New York Harbor, as recommended by the New York Harbor Line Board." App. to Exceptions of New Jersey 21a, 22a.24 In
1904, as said before, the United States made an application to the Riparian Commission of New Jersey for certain lands under water adjacent to Ellis Island. The United States Attorney General, William Moody, at that time explained that the Government had not made the application earlier because it had previously "proceeded upon the theory that the ownership of the lands under water around Ellis Island was in the State of New York," but changed its view because "it would seem from [the Compact] that the ownership of the lands under water west of the middle of the Hudson River and of the Bay of New York is in the State of New Jersey." N. J. Exh. 351 (letter from U. S. Atty. Gen. William Moody to the Riparian Comm'n of New Jersey 1-2, dated July 15, 1904).25 In 1933, New Jersey got the nod again when the
24 Justice Stevens brands this ascription to New Jersey as "obviously . . . a mistake." Post, at 826, n. 17. But the mistake (as to the original Island) was not obvious. See n. 25, infra.
25 The New York Times reported that "[t]he chief interest in the application lies in the fact that it is a recognition of the claim that New Jersey and not New York owns the submerged lands in the vicinity of Ellis Island." N. J. Exh. 5 (N. Y. Times, July 19, 1904).
Justice Stevens contends that once New Jersey transferred title to the submerged lands to the United States "the parties may reasonably have believed that the State thereafter possessed neither ownership nor jurisdiction over that area, particularly since the Compact had provided that New York was entitled to exercise jurisdiction over the surrounding
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