From Scouting New York:I recently had the chance to scout the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is always a fun experience. The Navy Yard, for those who don’t know, is a massive shipyard complex near DUMBO dating back to the 1700’s. The land was purchased by the government in 1801 for use as an active Navy Shipyard, and at its peak during World War II, employed over 70,000 workers. It was decommissioned in the 1960’s and sold to New York City, and is currently being used in a number of different ways, including as the city’s foremost movie studio space, Steiner Studios.
On my recent trip, I had the chance to see the ship repair dry docks in operation, which was really amazing.
4 comments:
My grandfather fought the great December 1960 USS Constellation construction fire at that same sight.
He had smoke & chemical sickness, pneumonia for almost a year and almost died.
The deck was 4 inch steel it buckled I spare the other detail he told me as a kid about that fire.
--Ladder 104 Brooklyn
i just cannot resist my relating to this post. i served aboard the 220 ',sea going minesweeper U.S.S. Tanager,during the Korean War,and we were in similar drydock at Charleston,S.C.
My father was a civillian mechanical engineer who worked at the yard.....He was on the constellation when the fire broke out...I was 10 and remembered how my mother worried until she heard from my father.I was 10.I am now 60.
My father worked as an electrician on the Constellation. On the day the fire broke out, he happened to be sick at home. I was eight years old at the time and I clearly remember how my grandmother called our house several times just to be rassured that my father was indeed safely at home. Just a few months before that terrible and deadly fire, I remember attending its dedication. It was a sunny day and proud workers, like my dad, were showing family members all around the ship. This made quite an impression upon me as a young girl. My father told me how strong the ship was, how thick the metal was. After the fire, he said the metal was reduced to pretzels.
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