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    The Brooklyn Navy Yard
    The Brooklyn Navy Yard
    The Brooklyn Navy Yard
    Ebook184 pages42 minutes

    The Brooklyn Navy Yard

    By Thomas F. Berner

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    Brooklyn Navy Yard details the beginnings and history of this significant military site.


    Not much larger than a few city blocks (219 acres, plus 72 acres of water), the Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of the most historically significant sites in America. It was one of the U.S. Navy's major shipbuilding and repair yards from 1801 to 1966. It produced more than 80 warships and hundreds of smaller vessels. At its height during World War II, it worked around the clock, employing some 70,000 people. The yard built the Monitor, the world's first modern warship; the Maine, whose destruction set off the Spanish-American War; the Arizona, whose sinking launched America into World War II; and the Missouri, on whose deck World War II ended. On June 25, 1966, the flag at the Brooklyn Navy Yard was lowered for the last time and the 165-year-old institution ceased to exist. Sold to the City of New York for $22.4 million, the yard became a site for storage of vehicles, some light industry, and a modest amount of civilian ship repair.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 15, 1999
    ISBN9781439620311
    The Brooklyn Navy Yard
    Author

    Thomas F. Berner

    In The Brooklyn Navy Yard, author Thomas F. Berner restores what were fast-fading memories of the yard's days of glory. An attorney who practices law in New York City, Berner presents stunning photographs to illustrate the vital role of this small yard. His sources include the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, and the United States Naval Institute.

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    • 4/5
      I gave this book a "4-Star" rating because its coverage of the Brooklyn Naval Yard is incomplete. The author does a spectacular job of telling the shipyard story through the shipyard's decommissioning in 1966. The author then gives an update of the facility's status in late1990s. However, while the "shipyard" was disestablished in 1966 and much of its industrial facilities lay unused and vacant, The Navy maintained an active presence for over two decades after shipyard operations ceased.

      For over twenty years the former shipyard became Naval Support Activity-New York. Many of the administrative buildings were still utilized by multiple naval shore commands, including the now defunct Third Naval District-previously located in expensive Manhattan. And while no ship construction or repair occurred during this time, naval activity was still quite active albeit on a much less grand scale. There were even small vessels stationed at the naval facility, including a fleet tugboat and other miscellaneous naval harbor craft. Transient naval personnel passing through the NYC area had access to bachelor quarters (BEQ/BOQ for enlisted and officers respectively). These transient quarters were located in WW II era temporary construction. Accommodations were basic and rudimentary, but reasonable considering the high priced locale. Quarters A was occupied by the Commandant, Third Naval District. Later, after that organization's disestablishment, the base commander or senior officer/commander occupied that residence. The rest of the Officer Quarters were occupied by naval officers assigned to commands located onboard the support activity or elsewhere in Manhattan. While a small galley (mess hall) still operated. This was restricted to active duty personnel, and reserve personnel performing reserve training. Families living on the naval base had to use commissary and exchange facilities at either Mitchel Field (Long Island) or Fort Hamilton in Manhattan. Routine out-patient medical services were provided by Fort Hamilton. For a brief period a small out-patient clinic remained at the former St. Alban's Naval Hospital in Queens-Bayside, which had been transferred to the VA sometime in the early 1970s.

      It was not until after the establishment of Naval Station New York (Staten Island) in 1990 that the Navy finally left the grounds of the shipyard for good in 1993.

    Book preview

    The Brooklyn Navy Yard - Thomas F. Berner

    (NA.)

    INTRODUCTION

    There are places in this world that ache with history, places that have had such a profound effect on who we are and how we got this way, that the past has never left them. History lingers in the corners of such places like the sweet smell of narcissus on a windless day. To enter such a place is to be smitten with the poignant sense that one is about to physically reenter the past.

    One such place can be found along a slightly shabby stretch of New York City’s waterfront on the edge of Wallabout Bay at what was once the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Its official name was originally the New York Navy Yard, then the U.S. Navy Yard—New York, and finally the New York Naval Shipyard; but Brooklynites have always called it by its unofficial name, the Brooklyn Navy Yard (referred to hereafter as BNY). Now a city-owned industrial park for private industry, BNY was one of the U.S. Navy’s most important shipyards for 165 years. It was a participant in every military buildup except for the earliest, in the 1790s, and the latest, in the 1980s.

    BNY played a much larger role in naval history than its cramped 219 acres (plus 72 acres of water) would indicate. Any list of the five most famous warships in American history will probably contain four ships that were commissioned here: the Monitor, the world’s first modern warship; the Maine, whose sinking caused the Spanish-American War; the Arizona, whose sinking launched America into World War II; and the Missouri, on whose deck World War II ended. The first transatlantic cable was strung from the stern of a ship built here. The U.S. Naval Academy was founded because of a mutiny on a BNY-built ship. BNY was a leader in the navy’s transition from sail to steam-driven ships.

    Navy yards were America’s first large-scale industrial complexes, combining a largely civilian work force with military command, all supported by government funding. Besides providing port facilities and provisions for the fleet, and constructing and repairing naval vessels, navy yards were responsible for the manufacture of many of the necessities for outfitting ships. BNY made many items, ranging from flags and pillowcases to torpedo compressors and turbine blades, in the course of its career. Right up to its closing, BNY manufactured sails, although by 1966, the sails were intended only for the Naval Academy’s training ship.

    Navy yards occupy a peculiar niche in American economic history. Historians of a leftist bent argue that these government-owned installations put the lie to the myth of an America founded on free enterprise and point to a government role in the growth of American economic power. Conservative historians find these yards to be early examples of government waste, where ships took many years to be built, launched, and commissioned in order to provide pork-barrel politicians with a perpetual source of no-show jobs for campaign supporters. Any boost to the economy, they argue, came about because their low productivity made them easy to compete against. There is, in fact, some truth to both of these claims, but there is no denying that a worthy by-product was the creation of a navy second to none.

    One

    THE AGE OF SAIL: 1801–1861

    Although the U.S. Navy acquired BNY on February 23, 1801, the yard was inactive for several years. No construction was started until 1805, when the first six buildings were built, and BNY did not receive its first commandant until June 1, 1806. It did not launch its first ship until 1820, although during the War of 1812, more than 100 ships were fitted out at BNY. BNY-built ships participated in the invasion and blockade of Mexico during the Mexican War. BNY was on the cutting edge of the technology of the time: the introduction of steam as a means of propulsion. One of the world’s first military think tanks was created at the yard when the Naval Lyceum was established in 1833. In the years before the Civil War, BNY launched 21 major ships: one ship of the line, three frigates (one of them powered by steam), nine sloops of war, two schooners, two brigs, three paddle wheel steamers, and one revenue cutter. With the secession of the southern states in 1861 and the loss to the Union of the navy yards located in the South, BNY assumed even greater importance to the fate of the nation.

    THE PRISON HULK JERSEY DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. More than 12,000 patriots died of disease or starvation in the Jersey and the 16 other prison hulks, decrepit former sailing ships that were crammed with American prisoners of war. (NYHS.)

    QUARTERS A, THE COMMANDANT’S RESIDENCE. Quarters A was one of the first buildings at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Whether or not the architect of the White House actually designed this residence, it contains a room remarkably similar in shape and size to the Oval Office. Quarters A is now a registered landmark. (BPL.)

    THE STEAM BATTERY FULTON. Also known as the Demologos, the Fulton was the first steamship built for any navy. It was not designed to be seagoing but was built to defend New York Harbor. Built in New York, but not at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, it

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