The last of an armada of floating jails used by New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Vernon Sea Bain sits across the river from Rikers Island between a wastewater treatment plant and a wholesale fish market. Detainees are afforded a daily hour of recreation on a caged upper deck, where they were seen recently playing basketball on a sunny morning. Otherwise, they're only other natural light beams through the ship in tiny portholes