Frank da Cruz, Bronx NY, June 2018

Most recent update: Sat May 20 12:32:07 2023

Brooklyn Navy Yard — also known as New York Navy Yard and United States Navy Yard — dates back to the 1600s. It was designated a United States Navy shipyard in 1801, thus it cannot be said to be a New Deal project. However, at least four of the ships built there during the New Deal were paid for by Public Work Administration funds, thousands of its workers were on the WPA payroll, and a great deal of building and infrastructure work essential to its mission was done there by the WPA (see table). Read about New Deal assistance to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and shipbuilding below the thumbnails.

On a personal note, in the Army I sailed from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Bremerhaven, Germany, on the USNS Geiger in 1963 and three years later sailed back to the Yard on the same ship to be released from the Army at nearby Fort Hamilton.

Part 1: Gallery

▲   (Click on any photo to enter)

What Is a New Deal Ship?

New Deal money and labor were involved in every aspect of the Brooklyn Navy Yard from 1933 onwards:

• New Deal money paid for at least four Navy and Coast Guard ships built at the Yard
• New Deal money paid for conversion of some existing ships for Navy use
• New Deal money paid for repair of some Navy ships damaged in the War
• New Deal money and labor reconstructed the Navy Yard for war production
• New Deal labor did engineering work
• New Deal labor did administrative work
• New Deal workshops trained draftsmen employed by the Yard*
• New Deal workshops trained young people for shipbuilding jobs
• New Deal workshops made parts for ships
• New Deal money paid to build housing for some Yard workers

Each ship built at the Yard during this period can therefore be said to have been created with varying degrees of New Deal assistance (these items are explained in the next section):

• PWA financing of a ship [0.5]
• Critical infrastructure created by New Deal money or labor [0.4]**
• Engineering by WPA engineers [0.3]***
• Secondary infrastructure: workshops, roads, rails, power, plumbing, steam, etc. [0.2]
• Parts manufactured at NYA workshops [0.2]
• Plans and blueprints drawn by WPA draftsmen [0.1]
• Shipbuilders trained at NYA workshops [0.1]

*	When trainees "graduated" from NYA or WPA programs, they didn't go straight to BNY, but rather through either state welfare agencies or civil service procedures. I'm not aware of any way to track the number of NYA-or-WPA graduate trainees who wound up at BNY, but it's inconceivable that there were not hundreds or thousands of them.
**	North Carolina, Iowa, and Missouri could not have been built without the reconstruction and lengthening of Shipways No.2, a massive and expensive WPA project[12]. Also there is a more-than-even chance that the million-dollar Hammerhead Crane was financed by New Deal money.
***	The WPA hired unemployed architects and engineers and assigned them to many different projects, including at other Navy installations. This photo shows that WPA engineers were working at BNY too.

We might assign a "New Deal pedigree" score to each ship built at the Yard between 1934 and 1945 according to the combination of criteria that apply to it (summing the figures in brackets, but not exceeding 1.0). In every case except the New Orleans it will be greater than zero. Here is a table of the ships built at Brooklyn Navy Yard from 1933 to 1945[4], with some information added, plus a rough New Deal score. The scores go down towards the end as the New Deal was phased out after the war started.

Table 0: Brooklyn Navy Yard Ships 1933-1945[18]

Name	Hull	Type	Tonnage	Laid down	Launched	Score	Fate
New Orleans	CA-32	Heavy Cruiser	10,000	1931/03/14	1933/04/12	0.0	Scrapped 1959
Hull	DD-350	Destroyer	1,395	1933/03/07	1934/01/31	0.1	Sunk in Philippine Sea 1944
Dale	DD-353	Destroyer	1,395	1934/02/10	1935/01/23	0.1	Sold 1946
Erie	PG-50	Gunboat	2,000	1934/12/17	1936/01/29	1.0	Torpedoed, beached, sunk 1942.
Brooklyn	CL-40	Light Cruiser	10,000	1935/03/12	1936/11/30	0.6	Sold to Chile 1951, sunk 1992
Alexander Hamilton	WPG-34	Coast Guard Cutter	2,000	1935/09/11	1937/01/06	1.0	Torpedoed and sunk off Reykjavik 1942
John C. Spencer	WPG-36	Coast Guard Cutter	2,000	1935/09/11	1937/01/06	1.0	Scrapped 1981
Honolulu	CL-48	Light Cruiser	10,000	1935/09/10	1937/08/26	0.6	Torpedoed and sunk near Iceland 1942
Helena	CL-50	Light Cruiser	10,000	1936/12/09	1938/08/27	0.6	Scrapped 1959
North Carolina	BB-55	Battleship	35,000	1937/10/27	1940/06/13	1.0	Museum ship since 1962 Wilmington NC
Iowa	BB-61	Battleship	45,000	1940/06/27	1942/08/27	1.0	Museum ship since 2011 San Pedro CA
Missouri	BB-63	Battleship	45,000	1941/01/06	1944/01/29	0.9	Museum ship since 1999 Pearl Harbor HI
Bennington	CV-20	Aircraft Carrier	27,100	1942/12/13	1944/02/26	0.5	Scrapped 1994
Bon Homme Richard	CV-31	Aircraft Carrier	27,100	1943/02/01	1944/04/29	0.5	Scrapped 1992
Frankin D. Roosevelt	CV-42	Aircraft Carrier	45,000	1943/12/01	1945/04/29	0.4	Scrapped 1978
Kearsarge	CV-33	Aircraft Carrier	27,000	1944/03/01	1945/05/05	0.4	Scrapped 1974
Oriskany	CV-34	Aircraft Carrier	37,000	1944/05/01	1945/10/13	0.4	Sunk as artificial reef 2006

Plus two floating workshops (YR34-35) and eight LST heavy landing craft (LST311-318) of which six survived to land at Normandy Beach on D-Day. 27 ships in all. In the hull numbers, CL = cruiser; DD = destroyer; PG = gunboat; CV = carrier, WPG = Coast Guard cutter.

Part 2: Research

The Brooklyn Navy Yard reached its peak of activity, employment, and production during Roosevelt Administration, ultimately turning out about 20 military ships that saw service in World War II. However, "its primary responsibility was ship repair. More than 5,000 bomb- and-torpedo damaged ships from many Allied nations streamed into New York Harbor for repairs, and an additional 250 ships were converted from civilian to wartime use. By the end of the war, BNY was the largest shipyard in the world, employing over 75,000 workers."[14,p.83]  Countless projects proceeded at a hectic pace and it's not a simple matter to track down each project and its source of funding and labor. All I can say is that any estimate made here of New Deal contributions to BNY and its ships almost certainly falls far short.

PWA Projects at Brooklyn Navy Yard

The Public Works Administration specialized in financing large-scale work projects in order to increase employment, and later, also to better prepare for the oncoming war. The list below does not purport to be complete. There is no definitive source for this kind of information; much of it is lost and what remains is hidden away in archives at scattered locations, often only on crumbling paper or microfilm. But this list should serve to demonstrate PWA funding and assistance not only in shipbuilding, but in making it possible to build the kinds and numbers of Navy-financed ships required for the coming war.

• City to Build East River Seaplane Bases, New York Times, 11 Jul 1934, p.19: "The first of two large seaplane ramps to be used by the Dock Department as public aircraft terminals on the East River was exhibited yesterday in the navy yard in Brooklyn ... The ramps are being built with funds made available by the government under the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration ..." [converted to PWA; next item.]
• The cruiser USS Brooklyn CL-40, launched 30 Nov 1936, one of the original 36 PWA ships (see table of PWA ships). Funding was switched at the last moment, but a significant amount of PWA funding went into its planning and design before that.
• 800 to Get Jobs at Navy Yard on PWA's Contract, New York Daily News 29 Jan 1934, Brooklyn Section p.1: "Civic workers interested in keeping alive Brooklyn's oldest industrial plant, the Navy Yard, were cheered yesterday by the news of a partial victory. The yard is to build two Coast Guard cruising cutters. The amount involved is more than $3,000,000 and the funds are to come from PWA. The work at its peak will provide employment for 800 men and last for nearly two years." These were the Alexander Hamilton and the John C. Spencer, the only two Coast Guard cutters built at BNY during the New Deal.
• Tanker Brazos Will Be Repaired With PWA Fund, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 Feb 1934, p.3: "...the allocation of $750,000 by the PWA for repairs to the naval tanker Brazos to be done at the Brooklyn Naval Yard".
• Government Construction Jobs to Spread Employment, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 28 Oct 1934, Section D, p.1: " Vast Allotment for Boro [i.e. Brooklyn], Queens in PWA Program, about $100,000,000 to Be Spent on Projects for Locality. Will Provide Employment for Great Army of Workmen ... construction of new vessels at Brooklyn Navy Yard, $4,013,000; 40-foot channel to Navy Yard, $1,456,000 ... general Navy Yard improvements, $1,005,970; reconditioning ships and pier improvements, $1,005,970..."
• Roosevelt Frees Billion for Works, New York Times, 19 May 1935, p.4: "To the Navy Department the following sums were allotted for Brooklyn projects for the purposes designated in the President's order: Navy Yard Gets Funds. Repair and improvement of distributing systems, including steam, compressed air, water and street lighting—$414,000. Repair and improvements of buildings—$1,780,000. Improvements to power, heating and refrigeration plants—$36,000. Repair and improvement of waterfront structures, including sea-walls, piers, drydocks, bulkheads, shipways, pilings and other such structures—$147,000. Modernization of plumbing and improvement of sanitation and ventilation—$105,000. Modernization of inside lighting and power circuits $149,000. Repair and improvement of railroad tracks—$160,000. Repair and improvement of paving, roads, walks and grounds—$150,000. Foundation explorations and subsurface surveys—$25,000. To complete Work Relief projects now under way, consisting of interior painting of shops, renovating office furniture, trucking, stock inventories, and miscellaneous items of renovation of buildings and grounds—$425,000."
• City Plans to Shift Home Relief Burden, New York Times, 2 Jun 1935, p.66: "...the city has already been allotted nearly $40,000,000 from the billion-dollar portion of the Federal public works funds that has been released. The projects include ... about $2,500,000 ... for the Brooklyn Navy Yard..."
• Thousands See Wall Street's Skyport Open, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 6 Sep 1934, p.24: "The giant 206-foot [fl]oating ramp, built at Brooklyn Navy Yard with PWA funds, was put into operation when a Bellanca Airbus ... landed in East River and taxied to the stringpiece."
• The gunboat USS Erie PG-50, launched 29 Jan 1936, 100% funded by the PWA (see table of PWA ships).
• The cutter USCG Alexander Hamilton, WPG-34, launched 6 Jan 1937, 100% funded by the PWA.
• The cutter USCG John C. Spencer, WPG-36, launched 6 Jan 1937, 100% funded by the PWA.
• Wallabout Bridge Opened, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 21 Feb 1937, p.3: "...the new Wallabout Market Bridge, a bridge designated to relieve bottle-neck traffic congenstion between the Navy Yard and Williamsburg sections ... a $390,000 structure ... It was built with PWA funds."
• 3d Battalion Marines get $140,000 Home, New York Daily News 1 Mar 1937, Brooklyn Section p.8: "Brooklyn Reserve Marines ... will move into its new $140,000 home in the Navy Yard early in April ... building to house 300 men and officers. Construction was made possible by a PWA grant."
• Soaring Stocks Laid to Rush of PWA Spending, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 Jun 1938, p.2A:M2: "PWA, heading toward $600,000,000 of construction, announced today grants totalling $49,052,950 for 265 Federal projects ... This first batch of Federal Works under the 1938 program included $27,883,000 for Navy Yard improvments ... [including] Brooklyn Navy Yard—Turret assembly facilities, $250,000; improvement outside electric distribution system, $35,000; improvement of shipbuilding ways No.2, $200,000 and $400,000." [Also in New York Daily News, same date.]
• Boro Yard Set to Lay Super-Battleship Keel, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 25 May 1940, p.3: "The preparation for [laying the keel of the North Carolina], building ways No. 2 has been lengthened from 800 feet to 1,100 feet. That was a $2,000,000 job; half the money coming from WPA and half from PWA funds. A crew of 1,000 WPA men has been at work on the extension since march of last year... Ways No. 2 was extended 100 feet into the East River waters and 200 feet on the land side. Six thousand oak piles, each from 25 to 40 feet in length and capable of bearing 17 tons were driven to hold up the extension." According to Reference 10, shipways No.2 was "completely reconstructed, partly by WPA forces and partly by contract, to take the North Carolina" (by contract = paid by the PWA). Shipways No.2 would be used to build not only the North Carolina, but also the Iowa and the Missouri.

NYA Assistance to the Brooklyn Navy Yard

The National Youth Administration ran a nationwide job training program to help young people get employment. As war loomed, the training turned towards war production. The NYA assisted the Brooklyn Navy Yard in two ways: (1) training young people in the skills needed for shipbuilding, and (2) machining parts for ships. NYA "graduates" worked in shipyards all over the country, but I haven't yet been able to find figures for Brooklyn Navy Yard.

1. NYA Has Hundreds in Shipyard Shops New York Times, 5 Mar 1941, p.10.
2. How the NYA Has Been Converted To Advance the War Program, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 25 Mar 1942, p.14: "[NYA] reports 16,000 machine shops in operation [in the USA], giving work training to 65,000 young men and 10,000 young women ... NYA reports that ... its large [machine] shop at Astoria, L.I., has turned out 32,000 parts for the Brooklyn Navy Yard in three months."
3. La Guardia Lauds NYA Training Plan, New York Times, 19 Dec 1942, p.24: In Harlem, the mayor "watched a class of thiry youngsters operate machines turning out material used in the Navy Yard at Brooklyn, and then praised the NYA for its constructive work." Aubry Williams, national NYA administrator, declared that "NYA was turning out 10,000 trained youthful workers into war industry every month and that he would renew his request for the $60,000,000 appropriation now given by the Federal Government for the program."

USHA Assistance to the Brooklyn Navy Yard

The United States Housing Authority (USHA), created under the Housing Act of 1937, built the Wallabout Houses, a 13-story complex of 200+ apartments for Brooklyn Navy Yard workers just two blocks from the Cumberland Street yard entrance; it still exists today (see Google aerial view). From 1939 USHA fell under the Federal Works Agency (FWA).

1. Orders Defense Housing, New York Times, 11 May 1941, p.35: "USHA Signs for Apartment Building Near Navy Yard Here".
2. U.S. Not 'Bluffing,' La Guardia Says, New York Times, 4 Dec 1941, p.6: "...Wallabout Houses, the city's first defense housing project, erected in the shadow of the Navy Yard in Brooklyn. ... built by the New York City Housing Authority acting as an agent for the Federal Works Agency."
3. Homes Available for War Workers, New York Times, 28 Dec 1941, pp.73-74: "...The public defense housing program for the New York area, developed to meet that portion of the need not being met by private enterprise, is summarized as follows: ... Brooklyn—Two hundred and seven dwellings are being constructed by the United States Housing Authority for enlisted employes of the Navy Yard under Public Act No.849, the Lanham act, at an estimated cost of $901,854. The site is at North Elliot Place, Park Avenue and North Portland Avenue. Construction, begun in June, is now virtually complete, and the project is 70 per cent occupied."

WPA Projects at Brooklyn Navy Yard

The Works Progress Administration specialized in putting people to work directly, rather than by hiring contractors. Table 1 shows nine WPA projects at Brooklyn Navy Yard, according to the DoD's 2009 inventory, totalling $5,550,015.00 in 1930s dollars, equivalent to about $100M in 2018. The WPA did not take direct part in shipbuilding because this was not allowed by law[1,p.16]. The following is not a complete list, for the reasons given in previous sections. Some of these items might coincide with the ones shown in the WPA Construction gallery above, there's no way tell without a trip to the National Archives.

Table 1:  WPA Projects at Brooklyn Navy Yard[2]

State	County	City	Location	Description of Project	O.P. Number	Total All Funds	Sponsor
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Construct and improve buildings, structures, and facilities.	109-3-97-14	1,515,000.00	Navy Dept. - Bureau of Yards and Docks
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Construct and improve buildings, utilities, structures, and facilities.	109-3-97-27	75,000.00	Navy Department, Bureau of Yards and Docks
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Construct and improve buildings, distributing systems, waterfront structures, tracks, pavements, and transportation facilities	665-97-2-3	300,000.00	Commanding Officer, Brooklyn Navy Yard, U.S. Navy
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Improve and rehabilitate buildings, facilities, and utilities, including distributing systems, tracks, pavements, transportation facilities, and shop and storage facilities, reconstructing Structural Shop and Pattern Shop floors and irrigation systems, extending electrical services to piers	709-2-38	700,000.00	Navy Department, Bureau of Yards and Docks
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Make improvements at the Navy Yard, including construction of turret assembly facilities, improving outside electric distribution system and shipbuilding ways No.2	709-2-9	1,072,000.00	Navy Department, Bureau of Yards and Docks
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Rehabilitate and improve buildings, facilities, grounds, and utilities	765-97-2-11	365,200.00	Commanding Officer, Brooklyn Navy Yard, U.S. Navy
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Underpin buildings, reconstruct pavement, and rehabilitate buildings.	0X-3-97-XX	30,000.00	U.S. Navy Department
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Renovate and improve buildings and facilities and improve grounds	65-2-97-50	968,115.00	Commandant, Brooklyn Navy Yard, U.S. Navy
NY	Kings	New York	Brooklyn Navy Yard	Underpin buildings, reconstruct pavement, and rehabilitate buildings.	XX-X-97-12	524,700.00	Navy Department, Bureau of Yards and Docks

Other WPA projects are shown in two WPA gallery sections above. Still other WPA (or in a few cases FERA, CWA) items that may or may not coincide with items in Table 1 are found in the newspaper archives... Like the other lists, this one does not claim to be complete:

• Navy Yard Seeks $4,000,000 in Work, New York Times, 6 July 1936: "The New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, which is putting the finishing touches, after eleven months' work, to $3,350,000 worth of WPA projects, has submitted estimates for additional projects for the next twelve months valued at $4,000,000, it was announced yesterday."
• PWA Is Asked For 4 Millions By Navy Yard, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 6 Jul 1936, p.4: "The current program, valued at $3,500,000 in WPA funds, has greatly increased employment in the yard ... Projects undertaken during the current year include a new pipe and copper shop, remodeling of the sheet metal shop, a new garage, extenstive paving, a new underground system of electric circuits, waterfront repairs and general rehabilitation of existing buildings and of the yard's distributing system.
• 8,200 Men at Work on Navy Yard Jobs, New York Times, 23 Aug 1936, p.25: "About 6,500 men are now actively employed on naval construction work and in the shops at the navy yard in Brooklyn, officers said yesterday. This figure does not include about 1,700 others on the WPA payrolls."
• Civic Groups Unite to Win New Warship, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2 Dec 1936, p.8: "Read Admiral Harris M. Laning, commandant of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard ... said, at present [the Yard] employs 7,300 silled laborers and approximately 2,000 WPA workers."
• Boro Yard Set to Lay Super-Battleship Keel, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 24 May 1940, p.3: "The preparation for [the keel-laying for the USS North Carolina at Brooklyn Navy Yard], building Ways No. 2 has been lengthened from 800 feet to 1,100 feet. That was a $2,000,000 job; half the money coming from WPA and half from PWA funds. A crew of 1,000 WPA men has been at work on the extension since march of last year ... Ways No. 2 was extended 100 feet into the East River waters and 200 feet on the land side. Six thousand oak piles, each from 25 to 40 feet in length and capable of bearing 17 tons were driven to hold up the extension."
• WPA Allots Work at Military Posts, New York Times, 18 Jul 1940, p.9: "...Navy grants include ... $600,00 ... for the New York (Brooklyn) ... navy yard".
• Somervell Outlines WPA Work in Boro For Defense Needs, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 Oct 1940, p.7: "The part the WPA is playing in the national defense program in Brooklyn... Much Work at Navy Yard ... strengthening buildings which are subjected to increasing weight due to large scale operations and demolition of certain structures to make way for new facilities."
• More Employes Working at Yard Than Ever Before, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 9 Nov 1940, p.2: "Not in the memory of the oldest employes [sic] has there been as much work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as at present. About 18,000 men are emplyed there, working six days a week in three shifts. Among them are about 1,200 WPA workers." Note: Various newspapers spelled "employees" as "employes" in the 1930s.
• WPA Plan Aids Defense, New York Times, 22 Dec 1940, p.27: "As evidence of the efficiency of a special WPA training program intended to create a reservoir of draftsmen for national defense ... more than 200 former relief workers were employed as full-time draftsmen and tracers at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn". The Brooklyn Navy Yard housed the Navy's Central Drafting Office from 1929 to 1937, which had responsibility for designing all of the Navy's surface fleet except for aircraft carriers: Four battleships, 11 cruisers, and more than 50 destroyers were designed at BNY during this period[14,p.75].
• Boro Navy Yard Employment at Peak of 20,200, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 3 Jan 1941, p.5: "An army of 20,200 skilled mechanics and laborers — the largest working force in the 14-year history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard... — is pressing ahead-of-schedule construction of three huge battleships [North Carolina, Iowa, and Missouri] and speedily turning out fleet auxiliaries ... The 20,000 workers include ... 1,000 assigned to the naval construction plan by the WPA."
• WPA Spent 70 Millions Here on Defense Jobs, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 12 Jan 1941, p.4: "...In the Brooklyn Navy Yard the WPA has been busy with a schedule of repairs or reconstruction since the first days of the work relief program. Rehabilitation was spread over 120 acres. Workmen extended Building Ways 2 to provide for construction of a new 45,000-ton battleship, approximately 300 feet. This work was performed under a non-jurisdictional project engaging 1,000 men. Other work was completed at the Naval Hospital. The WPA workmen also constructed a new warehouse for munitions storage ... and demolished other areas preparatory to increasing storage facilities."
• 20 WPA on Long Week, New York Times, 1 Jun 1941, p.37: "Twenty WPA projects in this city have been certified by Army or Navy as important to national defense and their 3,371 workers put on a 48-hour week, local WPA officials reported yesterday. Most are at Army forts or the Navy Yard in Brooklyn."
• 174 Ships Launched in One Day And Keels Are Laid for 49 More, New York Times, 8 Sep 1942, pp.1,3: "Labor in the nation's shipyards spent its traditional holiday at work yesterday, setting a record of 223 ships launched or begun. The metropolitan area about New York contributed its share, while in a lunch-hour speech to the workers in the busy Navy Yard in Brooklyn Rear Admiral E.J. Marquart, congratulating the men, described the achievements since Pearl Harbor as a 'staggering total almost beyond the belief of one's own eyes.'"

References

1. Report on Progress of the WPA Program, Work Projects Administration, 30 June 1940.
2. Nationwide Context, Inventory, and Heritage Assessment of Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps Resources on Department of Defense Installations, Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Program, Project Number 07-357, July 2009.
3. Government Construction Jobs to Spread Employment, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 28 Oct 1934, Section D, p.1: "About $100,000,000 to Be Spent on Projects for Locality Will Provide Employment for Great Army of Workmen ... construction of new vessels at Brooklyn Navy Yard, $4,013,000; 40-foot channel to Navy Yard, $1,456,000 ... general Navy Yard improvements, $1,005,970; reconditioning ships and pier improvements, $1,005,970..."
4. Stobo, John R, The New Deal Yard, 1933-1937, Part 2, John R. Stobo, Columbia University, October 2004, which quotes from Thompson, H.I., Inspector of Naval Materiel, “Ships Under NIRA”, "Ships Under NIRA," in Letter, from Inspector of Naval Material (H.I. Thompson), to Commandant (s of the navy yards), (and others), 20 September 1933; A1/NIRA; E322/1932-34; RG181; NA-NY, which lists each ship that was to be built (by hull number only) and at which yards In this section, Stobo refers repeatedly to CWA and WPA draftsmen, but the references are bit hard to chase down. See the Thompson letter HERE (PDF).
5. Brooklyn Navy Yard Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 10-900, 7 April 2014. Sec 8, p.32-41:

   The 1933 inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt ... Within his first "hundred days" Roosevelt, a former assistant secretary of the navy, earmarked $238 million under the National Industrial Recovery Act for warship construction. ... Naval public works appropriations through the National Industrial Recovery Administration, the Civil Works Administration, the Works Progress Administration, and the Public Works Administration put thousands of people back to work and did much to rehabilitate the yard. In addition to building ships, men were hired to construct a new garage (Building 50/50A, 1936), a garbage incinerator (Building 51, 1939), a coal plant office (Building 52, 1938), lay down extensive paving and railroad tracks, an d repair waterfront seawalls and waterfront construction. 126 By 1938, one-third of the yard;s 10,000 employees were being paid by the WPA. ... Just prior to the defense buildup the navy was operating eight yards. ... Of all the navy yards, the Brooklyn Navy Yard underwent the most complex reconstruction program. 129 The navy essentially had to reconfigure its small site, at that point broken up into pieces due to the Wallabout Market, and make it into a first-class, state-of-the-art navy yard within an incredibly short amount of time. These changes constituted the most significant physical changes to the site since it was established in 1801 and it is this period that is most evident at the navy yard today. ... The Brooklyn Navy Yard boomed during the war years. By the time of the Japanese surrender, signed on the deck of the yard-built American battleship USS Missouri, the Brooklyn facility was the world's largest shipyard, employing over 75,000 workers and sustaining a monthly payroll over $15 million. ... [towards the end of the war] battleship contracts were re placed with aircraft carrier orders. One of these, the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, was christened by Eleanor Roosevelt on April 29, 1945, just seventeen days after the president's death.

6. Millions for Defense: Emergency Expenditures for National Defense 1933-1940, US Federal Works Agency, Washington DC (1940).
7. Public Works of the Navy, Bulletin No.38, May 1937, US Government Printing Office (1937).
8. Public Works of the Navy, Bulletin No.39, June 1937, US Government Printing Office (1937).
9. Building the Navy's Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940-1946, Volume I (Part I), Department of the Navy, Bureau of Yards and Docks, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC (1947).
10. Building the Navy's Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940-1946, Volume I (Part II), Department of the Navy, Bureau of Yards and Docks, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC (1947).
11. First Women Hired in Navy Yard Shops, New York Times, 14 Sep 1942, pp.1,19. "When the United States Civil Service Commission announced that women could take an examination for prospective mechanics, 20,000 applied."
12. Boro Yard Set to Lay Super-Battleship Keel, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 25 May 1940, p.3. The PWA-WPA project to lengthen BNY's Shipways No.2 for the construction of the battleships North Carolina, Iowa, and Missouri.
13. Navy Yard, Fort Jay and Army Terminal Played Major Roles in Nation's History, New York Times, 20 Nov 1964. In World War II the Brooklyn Navy Yard "repaired more than 5,000 ships, converted some 250 others and built the battleships North Carolina, Iowa and Missouri and the aircraft carriers Bennington, Bon Homme Richard, Kearsage and Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the peak of the war, more than 71,000 civilian and naval workers were employed."
14. Berner, Thomas F., The Brooklyn Navy Yard, Arcadia Publishing (1999).
15. Pitsch, Howard, Fort Greene, Arcadia Publishing (2010).
16. New York Navy Yard Shipworker, Brooklyn NY, Vol.III, No.10, January 29, 1944: "Workers, Few Guests to Witness Launching of USS Missouri, Iowa-Class Battleship. In the right-hand column it says "The first of her history-making class — the New-York-Navy-Yard-built USS Iowa — was launched from the very same ways seventeen months ago." See this page for details.
17. Yard Guardian: The 350-ton Hammerhead Crane, brooklynnavyyard.org (accessed 14 June 2018): "It is interesting to note that the construction of the crane predates Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. She was built in response to a Congressional authorization to modernize the US Navy and increase fleet size by 20%. The program was begun through an appropriation of $20 million dollars of public works funds through the Naval Appropriation Act of 1938, and was continued through the end of WWII. By war's end the total expenditure on naval modernization reached $590 million."
18. Ships Constructed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, John R. Stobo, Columbia University, October 2004, August 2004; February 2010.
19. Egan, Jennifer, Manhattan Beach, Scribner (2017). A novel about the Brooklyn Navy Yard in World War II.

1. A Better New York City (WPA, 1937), shows WPA road and warehouse construction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard starting at 1:10.
2. Hitchcock, Alfred, Saboteur, film, 1942. Includes footage of the wartime Brooklyn Navy Yard.
3. Kelly, Gene, On the Town, film, 1949: some footage of the postwar Brooklyn Navy Yard (see NY Post story).

Created by Photogallery 3.07 December 28, 2020