Historical Buildings and Sites in Jakarta: Menara Syahbandar.

Syahbandar Menara Jakarta was built around 1839 and previously called Uitkijk or Uitkijk Post, once the watchtower for vessels entering and leaving Batavia and as a tax collector's office for goods unloaded at the port of Sunda Kelapa. Its function as a control tower terminated after 1886, when the port of Tanjung Priok was opened.

The tower  actually occupies the former bastion (camp) Culemborg. The bastion was made of rock in 1645, the fortifications, part of the wall around the city of Batavia to care for the mouth of the Ciliwung River, Warehouse pepper, and Shipyard.

The building of Syahbandar Tower has a dimension of 4 x 8 meters high and 12 meters. Jakarta Syahbandar tower has three rooms, namely on the ground floor, in the central part measuring 6 × 7 meters, and the top which serves as a viewing room with four windows. On the lower ground floor, there is a room that used to serve as a place to imprison the crew who violate port regulations. 

Syahbandar Tower in Jakarta there is a stone slab inscribed with Chinese characters meaning the reference point, as a zero point of Batavia City. In the front yard of Menara Syahbandar, there is an inscription landmark, signed in 1977 by Jakarta Governor Ali Sadikin that time, as a bench mark of Kilometer 0 fo Jakarta at that time. But the point of Kilometer 0 Jakarta later transferred to the National Monument in about the 1980s.

Syahbandar Tower is at Jl. Pasar Ikan No.1, Sunda Kelapa, Jakarta. Open hour : 9.00 -15.00 Sunday and Tuesday – Thursday : 9.00 – 14.30 Friday – Saturday; Monday is closed.

Source: http://www.thearoengbinangproject.com/menara-syahbandar-jakarta/