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Looking Into Brooklyn Navy Yard's Dry Dock 1
By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 21, 2009
Modified Apr 21, 2009
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Apr 21, 2009
Modified Apr 21, 2009
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Photo via CityNoise
The Brooklyn Navy Yard contains more than the old, crumbling Admiral's Row homes that are often romanticized in photos (and likely to vanish in the near future). Recently one photographer documented Dry Dock 1, the 3rd oldest dry dock in the country, completed in 1851 and costing $2 million at the time. Last year architect Brendan Coburn noted that it was "Fashioned entirely from massive, hand-cut and hand-sanded blocks of granite excavated from a quarries in Maine, Connecticut, Staten Island and upstate New York, its size, form, and general aesthetic bring to mind a Roman ruin."
While the dock still maintains and repairs ships, CityNoise concludes their documentation of it with a list of ships that were built there during the 19th century, including "the Niagara (1867): the ship that laid the first successful transatlantic cable, Halstead’s Folly or The Intelligent Whale (1872) the prototype of the first submarines ever built, and The Maine (1897) which had a very short sailing life before it exploded in Havana Harbor, setting off the Spanish American War in 1898."
Tagged
brooklyn navy yard
Dry Dock 1
history
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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