United States Barge Office, ca. 1910.

This building served as the first federal immigration processing center from April 1890 to December 1891 for the period after the federal government fully assumed the immigration process, but before Ellis Island was opened. Immigration processing would return to this building in 1897 for three years after the wood-frame facility on Ellis Island burned down.

The United States Barge Building was constructed in 1882 on the east edge of Battery Park. The turreted building was the location of various municipal bureaus, including the customs administration. The pictured building was demolished and replaced with a new Barge Office in 1913. In turn, that building was demolished for the Battery Park Underpass in the late 1940s. When it was torn down, it marked the first time since the Civil War that the city did not have a building bearing that name.