Old Administration Building, Third District Lighthouse Depot

5B Borough Place | also 5 Bay Street | St. George | built 1931

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1863

    July 13

    Treasury Secretary Chase hands Staten Island land to the Light-House Board for a depot

    Rear Admiral William B. Shubrick and the scientist Joseph Henry of the Light-House Board wanted one place where the Third District's supplies, offices and experiments could be gathered, with easy access for large ships. In a letter dated July 13, 1863, Treasury Secretary S.P. Chase approved their plan and assigned the board roughly two and a half acres of the Treasury's Revenue Station lot at Castleton for permanent use.

    “Their efforts were rewarded in 1863, when the Secretary of the Treasury wrote the following letter…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1868

    Light-House Board asks for a fireproof office as records sit beside $500,000 of supplies

    The board's annual report for 1868 warned that the depot's offices were housed in the storehouse, a building that was not fireproof and held roughly half a million dollars of lighthouse supplies and irreplaceable records. It called for a fireproof office and archive building. The foundation had been laid and the walls raised to the water table, but work was expected to pause for a year without a dedicated appropriation.

    “…the offices connected with the service of this depot ... are located in the storehouse, a building which is not fireproof…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1871

    Mullett's Second Empire office building is finished after a year-long halt for lack of funds

    Designed under Alfred B. Mullett, Supervising Architect of the Treasury, the office building stalled for more than a year when money ran out, then resumed with completion expected by November 1871. The original square block, now the center of the building, had pink-veined grey granite trim, red sandstone and pressed red brick walls, and a mansard roof of dark grey slates laid in a hexagonal pattern.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1939

    July 1

    The Coast Guard absorbs the lighthouse bureau and the office becomes its Administration Building

    The Light-House Board moved from the Treasury to the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903 and became the Bureau of Lighthouses in 1910. On July 1, 1939, the U.S. Coast Guard took over the bureau's work, and the St. George office building, which had served the lighthouse depot for nearly seventy years, became the Administration Building of the Coast Guard station.

    “The functions of the Bureau of Lighthouses were taken over by the U.S. Coast Guard on July 1, 1939…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1966

    The Coast Guard leaves St. George for Governors Island, closing the century-old depot

    In 1966 the Coast Guard's Third District station moved from Staten Island to Governors Island, which the Army had just given up. After about a hundred years of continuous government use, the St. George compound shut down and was declared surplus federal property.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 47 buildings with stories in St. George