The North Carolina, first of the new generation of monster battleships. Built at Brooklyn Navy Yard between October 1937 and June 1940. At 729 feet in length, it was about 300 feet longer than any ship previously built at BNY. To accommodate it, one of the Yard's Shipways — No.2 — had to be enlarged: a $2,000,000-dollar job. The PWA paid half, and the WPA paid the other half and supplied the labor: 14 months' work for 1000 men[12]. Then, just two weeks after the North Carolina was launched, the keel of the Iowa (an even bigger battleship) was laid in the same shipways.

1. 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 and Iowa.
2. USS North Carolina (BB-55), Wikipedia: history of the ship, including service in WWII.
3. Battleship Photo Archive: BB-55 USS North Carolina, www.navsource.org, accessed 12 Jun 2018.
4. Battleship North Carolina, the website the USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial, where the ship itself is docked at Eagle Island on the Cape Fear River, Wilmingon, NC, and has been open to visitors since 1961.