In 1824 the federal government gave the fort to the city, which turned it into Castle Garden, a celebrated entertainment hall, where "the Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind, first sang on her American tour. In 1850, after the premiere of La Sonnambula, New York's indefatigable diarist, George Templeton Strong, wrote: "Everybody goes, and nob and snob, Fifth Avenue and Chatham Street, sit side by side fraternally on the hard benches. Perhaps there is hardly so attractive a summer theatre in the world as Castle Garden when so good a company is performing as we have here now. Ample room; cool sea breeze on the balcony, where one can sit and smoke and listen and look out at the bay studded with the lights of anchored vessels, and white sails gleaming. . . ." In 1855, during a peak immigration period (more than 319,000 immigrants reached the New York port in 1854 alone), Castle Garden was converted into a reception hall for the entering masses. Before this innovation, those who came over in steerage had been routinely fleeced by runners at the docks, who stole their luggage or steered the newcomers to outrageously overpriced boardinghouses. These runners and touts often spoke the same language as their confused countrymen, the better to exploit their trust. Entering at Castle Garden, however, the immigrant could take stock, receive honest advice, and make further transportation arrangements at normal rates. In William Dean Howells's fine novel A Hazard of New Fortunes, the Marches approve of "the excellent management of Castle Garden, which they penetrated for a moment's glimpse of the huge rotunda, where the emigrants first set foot on our continent. . .. No one appeared troubled or anxious; the officials had a conscientious civility; the government seemed to manage their welcome as well as a private company or corporation could have done." It is interesting to contrast this rosy picture with the testimony of one who actually went through the processing line, Abraham Cahan (in his classic immigrant novel, The Rise of David Levinsky): "We were ferried over to Castle Garden. . . . The harsh manner of the immigration officers was a grievous surprise to me. As contrasted with the officials of my despotic country, those of a republic had been portrayed in my mind as paragons of refinement and cordiality. My anticipations were rudely belied. 'They are not a bit better than Cossacks,' I remarked to Gitelson.. . . These unfriendly voices flavored all America with a spirit of icy inhospitality that sent a chill through my very soul." The immigrant station at Castle Garden was closed in 1890; two years later the much more famous one at Ellis Island opened. In 1900 Castle Garden reinvented itself as the city's aquarium, around which time the journalist John C. Van Dyke compared it to "a halfsunken gas tank." Now Ellis Island beckons as the revered national landmark of immigration, while the rotundaless, roofless Castle Garden operates as a sort of glorified tickets booth to that attraction.