Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center

The Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center, nicknamed The Boat, was a jail barge that the New York City Department of Correction used to hold inmates off the Bronx shore near Hunts Point, across from Rikers Island. It was built at Avondale Shipyard near New Orleans, Louisiana, in a project begun in 1989 that ran about eighteen months late and some 35 million dollars over its budget because of problems such as its ventilation system. It was towed about 1,800 nautical miles to New York by the tugboat Michael Turecamo, arriving on 26 January 1992, and opened later that year with 16 dormitories and 100 cells for medium to maximum security inmates. It was named for a warden of that name who died in an automobile accident. It was the third jail barge the city had used, and in 2014 Guinness World Records named it the world's largest prison barge in operation. The last prisoners left in November 2023 and the barge was later taken to Louisiana for scrapping.