Flushing Avenue

I still have many drawings from last year when I was working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that I never got around to posting. I'm trying to get them all up in the next few weeks. This batch is all of structures along Flushing Avenue, which forms the southern boundary of the Yard.

I couldn't find out exactly what this building, between Ryerson St. and Grand Ave., was used for, but it was part of the Naval Yard Hospital campus. Up a hill beyond that fence is the main building and the Surgeon's House of the Hospital. The hospital operated from before the Civil War through World War II. The property is now controlled by Steiner Studios, which has proposed various uses for it. Nothing has come of those plans yet, and the buildings remain, hidden behind fences, shrouded in overgrown trees, intact but abandoned, and very spooky. If you're lucky, a quick visit is sometimes included in the tours run by Turnstile Tours.

Not officially part of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, this building nonetheless is an important remnant of the yard's history. During its heyday, Sands Street and Flushing Ave., forming the perimeter of the Navy Yard, were lined with dozens of stores supplying uniforms and clothing for sailors (as well as the other two businesses indispensable to sailors: bars and brothels). In Brooklyn! An Ilustrated History, Michael Faiella, the second-generation owner of Reliable and Franks, is quoted as recalling that "when the fleet was in, from the gate to the Navy YMCA at the top of Sands Street, all you could see was a sea of white hats. Some of [the supply stores] stayed open all night."

Reliable Naval Tailoring was established in September, 1927, on Sands Street by Natale Faiella. His son, Michael, took over the store in 1964, and moved it to the Flushing Ave location in 1971, when he bought out the Frank's Naval Uniforms building, hence "Reliable & Franks." Michael's son, Vincent, later took it over. This site has some 70's-era photos of the interior.

Obviously, business dropped dramatically when the Navy Yard was decommissioned in 1966. Reliable & Franks continued for some time, selling Army-Navy-style clothing to hippies, uniforms to cruise ships and private yacht crews, and costumes for the Village People's "In The Navy" video. But by 2006, the store finally closed, with the NY Times reporting that the entire stock was being moved to central New Jersey, where Vincent Faiella lives. I did see the roll gate up one day, but the windows were papered over, so I couldn't see what was going on inside.

As for M&J Navy Yard Sub, I think they just cashed in on the name. It's just a deli. 

Sculpture atop the Clinton Ave Gate. Some years ago, I was sketching in Lower Manhattan, when two people with cameras started talking to me about a documentary they were filming about all the eagle statues of New York City. I wonder if they found this one, or ever finished their film.

This structure is one of the most distinctive and iconic features of the Navy Yard. It is one of a pair of WWII-era radio antennas atop Building 1 (the cable/bridge coming from the top connects to a twin structure). The antennas allowed communication with the U.S. Naval fleet across the Atlantic. The building was constructed in 1942 as the Material Sciences Laboratory, the main site of research operations, where radio, radar, sonar, and other navigation equipment, including the navigation system for the Polaris nuclear submarine, was developed and tested. It's now part of Steiner Studios, which has the antennas lit up in blue and white at night, making it a striking landmark seen from the BQE. I drew it once before, in 2015.