The Nassau Gallery is currently under construction

At its peak, during World War II, the yard operated 24 hours a day and employed 70,000 workers.

The late Phil Dante, my father-in-law, sat down with two of those workers in 1987 to record their memories of working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Presented here are excerpts from those conversations.

Ralph Carrano, founder and editor of the Greenpoint Gazzette, recounts his start at the yard during World War II.

Edward Kloscewski recounts how he started at the Navy Yard.

About two years before the shipyard closed word spread the yard was going to be closed. Professor Seymour Melmen an Engineering Economist of Columbia Graduate School Of Engineering looked into the plight of the shipyard workers at the N.Y.N.S. and came up with a detailed plan for converting the then New York Naval Ship Yard into a commercial shipyard which would have saved most of the skilled shipyard jobs. The plan was never put in place. The Wagner Administration looked to the auto industry to build a car plant inside the Yard. None of the U.S. car manufacturers were interested. The foreign car manufactures claimed with the conversion of the dollar it was too expensive.The navy decommissioned the yard in 1966, the Johnson Administration refused to sell the yard to the City of New York for 18 months. When the new Nixon Administration came into power they signed the papers to sell the yard to the city. Leases were signed inside the yard even before the sale of the yard to the City was signed.