Sands Street Gate

I've been accepted as a visiting artist at The Brooklyn Navy Yard. I figured a good introductory piece would be of the Sands Street entry gates, at the Western boundary of the Navy Yard.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard was established by the Federal government in 1801, and built ships for the U.S. Naval Fleet until 1966. At the height of World War II, it employed over 70,000 workers. Today, it still has working dry docks, but the bulk of it is devoted to various commercial and maufacturing businesses, and is in the midst of dramatic growth and expansion. One of the goals of my residency is to get down as much of the older remnants of the Yard as I can.

These gates were built in 1896. Old photographs show that there were originally a pair of eagles flanking the entrance, and additional faux-medieval turrets to the rear. The  buildings were modified, added to, and eventually subtracted from over the years. A 1937 photo shows a large addition which housed the Labor Board, and shows the walls and turrets covered in ivy.  At some point, the turrets had been removed and the entire structure encased in a plywood shell, as it became the main entry to the NYPD tow yard.

ca 1904. via Brooklyn Navy Yard Archives

1937. Brooklyn Navy Yard Archives

ca 2009, via Brownstoner

The gatehouses were restored to a semblance of their original state by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation in 2015. The Gatehouse on the right now houses a coffee shop-by-day/whiskey tasting room-by-night run by Kings County Distillery, which is located in the Yard.

Farrell's

Farrell's Bar & Grill, in Windsor Terrace. The business was founded in 1933, the year Prohibition was repealed, when the neighborhood was mostly working-class and Irish, and it remains an authentic old-man, blue-collar bar. Women weren't allowed until sometime in the 80s, though Shirley MacLaine famously forced her way in while filming some movie in the neighborhood. It was also famous for serving Budweiser (apparently, they only serve Bud) in giant styrofoam cups. New York City outlawed styrofoam cups last year; it's unclear if they've phased them out yet. It really doesn't look like the sort of place where someone like me would be welcome, but that's OK. Not everyplace has to be for everyone.

NMP Door

Door to a bar on East 3rd St. called NMP, or No Malice Palace.

As I was sketching this, a guy came up to me and said, "Hey, what are you doing? Oh, you're just drawing? I thought you were reporting on this place. Cuz every weekend they have fights here, so the community is meeting to try to get it shut down!"

Every time I've been by here, when it's been open - which isn't that often, actually - it's been pretty empty. But the internets tell me that it's a "hip-hop bar" that has crowded dance parties every Friday and Saturday night, so maybe I'm just not in the neighborhood at peak times. In fact, I know I'm not.

Fraunces Tavern

Fraunces Tavern, located in lower Manhattan at the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets. It claims to be the oldest extant building in Manhattan, dating back to 1719, although it has been rebuilt and renovated many times, so much so that it no longer bears its original appearance.

The tavern was a meeting place of the American revolutionary group the Sons of Liberty, and post-Revolution, was the site of Washington's farewell speech to his officers, and the first seat of the first American federal government.

It is also a stop on the American Whiskey Trail, which sounds like my kind of trail.