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This April 4, 1968, photo shows Martin Luther King Jr.’s neatly packed briefcase in his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. To mark the 45th anniversary of MLK’s assassination, LIFE.com has a gallery by Henry Groskinsky made just hours after the shooting.

“I was documenting a momentous event,” Groskinsky said, “and I thought that at any time I was going to be asked to leave, so I did what I could as quickly as I could.”

See more of Groskinsky’s photos here.

(Credit: Henry Groskinsky—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

This never-before-published photo shows immigrants on Ellis Island in 1950. On the anniversary of the closing of the island’s immigration center, LIFE.com has a rare collection of photos that depict the activity there just a few years before it was shut down.

(Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

The scene on a New York subway car in 1969. LIFE.com has put together a series of vintage N.Y. subway photos – see more.

(Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

In this picture of from 1971, the nearly completed World Trade Center twin towers are shown. On the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, LIFE.com pays tribute to New York City in photos showcasing lower Manhattan, where the twin towers once stood.

(Photo: Henry Groskinsky—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)