The Brooklyn Navy Yard

The Brooklyn Navy Yard, located in New York City along the East River in Wallabout Basin, was one of the most active and innovative military shipbuilding facilities in the United States. During the Revolutionary War, the site was the anchorage of the notorious British prison ships, on which an estimated 11,000 American patriots and other prisoners died under horrific conditions.

Commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1801, the Yard was in continuous operation until 1966, playing a crucial role in American naval, industrial, and cultural history, re-inventing itself time and again in response to the military, economic, technological, and social forces affecting the nation as a whole. At its height during World War II, the Yard’s achievements can be described without exaggeration as heroic.

Now the Yard is promoting local economic development and job creation, developing as an underutilized area and overseeing the modernization of infrastructure and assets while maintaining its historical integrity. The 300-acre industrial park on the Brooklyn waterfront, once the site of one of the nation’s most storied naval shipbuilding facilities, is now home to over 330 industrial tenants employing more than 6,400 people, up from 3,600 in 2001.