Only in Hamburg by Duncan J.D. Smith

95 Hamburg-Mitte to HAPAG. Whereas first class passengers were able to collect their tickets in the splendid foyer at Ballin-Haus, and await embarcation in the luxurious Hotel Atlantic, emigrants travelling steerage were legally obliged to be registered, disinfected and given stringent health checks in a special compound built by the company in 1892 on Amerika­ kai (Kleiner Grasbrook) (the same year as an outbreak of cholera in Hamburg had been blamed on Russian emigrants). When the influx of emigrants outgrew the compound a new facility for emigrants was opened by Ballin in 1901 in the district of Veddel. Dubbed “the world’s biggest inn” it was a self-contained ‘city within a city’, consisting not only of a series of emigration halls (Auswandererhallen) , in which emi- grants could sleep and eat cheaply prior to departure, but also a church, Old shipping posters adorn a wall of the BallinStadt Emigration City museum in Veddel