The New York Naval Shipyard was also commonly referred to as the Brooklyn Navy Yard and it was established in 1801. The Naval Shipyard is located 1.7 miles northeast of the Battery on the Brooklyn side of the East River in Wallabout Basin. Wallabout Basin is a “semicircular bend of the East River across from Corlear’s Hook in Manhattan.”
The American Revolution ended in 1783 and at that time, the waterfront where the Shipyard is now located was used to build merchant vessels. Federal authorities thought that so much more could be done with this space and this ultimately prompted them to purchase the dry docks as well as the land around it. The land surrounding the dry docks totaled forty acres and the entire deal was settled at forty thousand dollars. The purchase was made in 1801, but there was so much work and construction to be done on the forty acres that it was not until five years later that the area became an active United States Navy Shipyard. Offices, store-houses and barracks were built on the ground’s forty acres.
The New York Naval Shipyard was an influential part of history in so many ways. “The nation’s first ironclad ship, Monitor, was fitted with its revolutionary iron cladding at the nearby Continental Iron Works. By the American Civil War, the yard had expanded to employ about 6000 men. In 1890, the ill-fated Maine was launched from the Yard’s ways.”
It was not just the importance of the Naval Shipyard that grew over time, but the size and functionality as well. By the time World War II began the Yard “contained more than five miles of paved streets, four dry docks ranging in length from 326 to 700 feet, two steel shipways, and six pontoons and cylindrical floats for salvage work, barracks for marines, a power plant, a large radio station, and a railroad spur, as well as the expected foundries, machine shops, and warehouses.” This Naval Shipyard had everything that was necessary to assist in a major war and that was evident at the peak of World War II. The Yard was so busy that they were employing 70,000 workers 24 hours a day.
Unfortunately, the New York Naval Shipyard had an abundance of asbestos, and as a result many of its thousands of employees grew ill or even died many years later. Despite any controversy that may have surrounded it, this Naval Shipyard remains one of the most influential and powerful ones of its time.
