Customhouse and Port Museum

Dársena Sur Lado Este (Southern Dock - East Side)
(at the height of Brasil St.) Benito Correa 1351
Tel. 4300-5829
Open Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The five exhibition rooms of this museum contain valuable material from the history of the General Port Administration, and the General Custom house Administration. In Room 1, known as "Buenos Aires", a huge scale model shows the coast of the "large village" another name for Buenos Aires in the past - in 1883. The only constructions existing at the time were the Customhouse breakwater and the passenger wharf (at the height of the present Central Post Office building).
There is also a scale model of the Eduardo Madero port. Room 2, "Presidents", contains old pieces of furniture that belonged to Bartolomé Mitre; a safety-box belonging to Justo José de Urquiza; a coffer belonging to Güemes, and a bust of Julio A. Roca.
In Room 3, known as "Engineer Luis A. Huergo", a scale model reproduces a 1915 floating crane, that was later used in the Subfluvial Tunnel; the first telephone exchange installed in the Port, theodolites and several dredges and cranes. Room 4 "Coats of Arms", contains original objects, such as wheel-barrows, loading shovels, scales and ancient clocks. In Room 5, "Navigation" there are scale models of Colon´s flagship, a Spanish galleon, borges, as well as diving equipment, buoys, beacons, marigraphs, fishing nets, a helm and a binnacle. Outside the museum there are a series of exhibits including a Crafton steam crane (1912), a pumpdriven dray (1931), buoys (1926), a beacon pole (1930), mooring grapples and Dock Sudfloaters (1930).