In 1917, New Yorkers walking into Union Square could encounter a battleship without getting anywhere near the harbor. USS Recruit was a wooden mock-up built in the park as a U.S. Navy recruiting station during World War I. Its hull, superstructure, turrets, and masts created the outline of a warship, but the structure’s entire operational theater was Manhattan.

The land battleship was built through public subscriptions collected by the Mayor’s Committee on National Defense. That origin made it part civic spectacle, part workplace, and part enormous advertisement. Instead of asking potential sailors to imagine naval service from a poster, Recruit gave the city a ship-shaped place to enter.

Despite the name, it was not a commissioned combat vessel and never had a voyage to make. Its purpose was to recruit the people who would board real ships. For a period, Union Square held a convincing piece of the Navy’s visual world—an urban building pretending to be transportation, permanently at anchor in pavement.