Much has been written on the barbarity of the British during the American Revolution, when (among other things) male “colonials” of fighting age were rounded up and marooned on floating hulks in what is today the Brooklyn Navy Yard. An estimated 10-12,000 Americans died there, more than in all of the war’s battles combined.
Today, almost 250 years later, New York has the dubious honor of hosting the world’s only purpose-built floating detention facility, the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center, a 627-foot-long barge moored off Hunts Point in the South Bronx, opposite Rikers Island.
There’s a short video about VCBC by Laura Poitras and Sean Vegezzi here.
–Rob Buchanan