![Admirals row decayed house jeh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Admirals_row_decayed_house_jeh.jpg)
Admiral's Row was a row of ten homes formerly used by naval officers in the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
of
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard
The Brooklyn Navy Yard (originally known as the New York Navy Yard) is a shipyard and industrial complex located in northwest Brooklyn in New York City, New York. The Navy Yard is located on the East River in Wallabout Bay, a semicircular bend ...
, and owned by the
National Guard of the United States
The National Guard is a state-based military force that becomes part of the reserve components of the United States Army and the United States Air Force when activated for federal missions.[U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...]
closed the original Navy Yard in the mid-1960s, it continued to house some personnel in the officers' houses until the mid-1970s. Afterward, many of the buildings in Admiral's Row deteriorated to the point of collapse. Most of Admiral's Row was demolished in 2016 as part of a redevelopment of Brooklyn Navy Yard; only one house and a timber shed remain from the original row. A supermarket and an office building are being developed on the site of Admiral's Row.
Designations
The property on which the row stood encompassed approximately and was located on
Flushing Avenue
Flushing Avenue is a street running through northern Brooklyn and western Queens, beginning at Nassau Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and ending at Grand Avenue in Maspeth. It divides the neighborhood of Williamsburg from Clinton Hill an ...
near Navy Street, near the southwest corner of the yard.
Admiral's Row featured ten homes in various architectural styles (namely the
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
,
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
, and
French Empire style
The Empire style (, ''style Empire'') is an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts, representing the second phase of Neoclassicism. It flourished between 1800 and 1815 durin ...
s). They served as residences to high-ranking Navy Yard officers. The property also contained a timber shed, parade ground, tennis courts, and garages attached to each house.
Each house contained a brick and stone
cladding
Cladding is an outer layer of material covering another. It may refer to the following:
*Cladding (boiler), the layer of insulation and outer wrapping around a boiler shell
*Cladding (construction), materials applied to the exterior of buildings
...
. A finished
basement
A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...
was located underneath each building, and the first floor of each structure was raised several feet above the ground, accessed by a
stoop. Some of the houses had
mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
s.
Some of the residences were
townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...
s, divided into two or three units. The designations of the buildings, along Flushing Avenue from west (Navy Street) to east, were:
# A timber shed
# Quarters K, Quarters L
# Quarters H, Quarters C
# Quarters B
# Quarters D
# Quarters E, Quarters F, Quarters G
# Quarters I
Also on the grounds were:
* A
tennis court
A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be u ...
on the northeast end
* A parade ground on the northwest end
* A
greenhouse
A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...
* Garages for each resident
* Quarters J, the groundskeeper's house, located near the northwestern boundary of the Row
Quarters A
Quarters A, also known as the Commandant's House, is a historic house on Evans Street in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Built beginning in 1805, with a number of later alterations, it remains a prominent example of Fed ...
, the
Commandant
Commandant ( or ) is a title often given to the officer in charge of a military (or other uniformed service) training establishment or academy. This usage is common in English-speaking nations. In some countries it may be a military or police ran ...
's residence, was not located on the Row. Of the structures on the Row, Quarters B is the most intricately styled and is in the best condition of any of the residences. Quarters B was the home of Admiral
Matthew C. Perry
Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). He played a leading role in the o ...
while he was the commandant (titled Commodore) of the New York Navy Yard.
History
Admiral's Row was built on the site of a mill pond that existed early in the history of Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The majority of the residences, comprising Quarters B through G, were built before 1873.
The first houses, the French Empire-style Quarters E, F, and G, began construction in 1864 on the site of the Remsens' mill pond. Quarters E served as the naval constructor's residence, while Quarters F was the chief engineer's residence, and Quarters G was the surgeon's residence. Each structure had six to seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. To the west was Quarters B, the captain's residence, which was likely constructed in 1872 and was the largest house in Admiral's Row. The following house was Quarters D, the ordnance officer's residence, was probably built the following year. To the west of Quarters D was Quarters C, the equipment officer's residence, a French Second Empire building built in 1872.
Quarters H, the general storekeeper's residence, was built as an annex to Quarters C in 1881. Quarters I, a freestanding building to the east of Quarters E/F/G, was built around 1889. Quarters K and L, two attached houses, were built in 1901 to the west of Quarters C. All of these structures were designed in the French Empire style.
The row was abandoned in 1966 when the Navy Yard was decommissioned.
Redevelopment
The property was set to undergo a
Section 106 review (under the
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA; Public Law 89-665; 54 U.S.C. 300101 ''et seq.'') is legislation intended to preserve historic and archaeological sites in the United States of America. The act created the National Register of Historic ...
) by the National Guard. In April 2008, it launched a website in order to invite public involvement in the proceedings. An open meeting was held in July 2008, where the public was asked to weigh in on the preservation of the structures. The results of that meeting were published on the National Guard website, as well as considered in the Alternatives Report for the site.
After a long period of deterioration, Admiral's Row was approved for demolition in 2009. In 2010, the administration of former New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
proposed to revitalize the row. Two developers attempted to revitalize the row, but one was accused of bribery and another could not pay insurance after 2012's
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...
.
Although
Brooklyn Navy Yard
The Brooklyn Navy Yard (originally known as the New York Navy Yard) is a shipyard and industrial complex located in northwest Brooklyn in New York City, New York. The Navy Yard is located on the East River in Wallabout Bay, a semicircular bend ...
Development Corporation president Andrew Kimball has claimed that the residences have been damaged beyond repair by the elements, the report prepared by the
refuted this claim, suggesting that the residences are not only excellent candidates for rehabilitation, but meet all eligibility requirements for inclusion on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
, both individually and as a district. The
agreed with this assessment and suggested that alternatives to
demolition
Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...
, including
adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an existing building for a purpose other than which it was originally built or designed for. It is also known as recycling and conversion. Adaptive reuse is an effective strategy for optimizing the o ...
, must be considered.
![Brooklyn Navy Yard October 23, 2018 (44797870044)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Brooklyn_Navy_Yard_October_23%2C_2018_%2844797870044%29.jpg)
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation wanted to save the row's timber shed and Quarters B, renovating the two buildings at a cost of $70 million and demolishing the remaining buildings in Admiral's Row. The
Army National Guard
The Army National Guard (ARNG), in conjunction with the Air National Guard, is an organized Militia (United States), militia force and a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States A ...
, which owned Admiral's Row, initially did not want to renovate the two buildings, because the entire complex was about to collapse.
In November 2011, the
New York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five Borough (New York City), boroughs.
The council serves as a check against the Mayor of New York City, mayor in a may ...
approved a plan to rehabilitate the more stable buildings for retail space, and demolish the unstable ones. Only Quarters B and the Timber Shed would be saved. In January 2012, the property was demilitarized and transferred to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.
The redevelopment of Admiral's Row was approved in 2015. Most of the buildings would be demolished; a
Wegmans
Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. is a privately held American supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Gates, New York, and was founded in 1916 in Rochester.
As of , Wegmans has 110 stores, mostly in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions. The ...
supermarket, the city's first, is being built on the site. The site would also be occupied by manufacturing complex at 399 Sands Street, to be developed by
Steiner NYC, which already operated
Steiner Studios
Steiner Studios is a film studio at Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York City. It is the largest film and television production studio complex in the United States outside Hollywood. Steiner Studios, spread across , contains 30 soundstages a ...
at Brooklyn Navy Yard.
To make way for these buildings, Admiral's Row was demolished in 2016.
Preservationists and community members criticized the demolition of the houses.
Construction on 399 Sands started in June 2018, and it was expected to open in 2021.
The adjacent Wegmans supermarket opened in 2019, as well as part of 399 Sands' parking lot.
The Admiral's Row redevelopment would include of light industrial and office space and of retail space.
See also
*
List of American houses
This is a list of American houses by state.
California
* Bidwell Mansion: home of John Bidwell and Annie Bidwell in Chico, California
* Bourn Mansion; Georgian-style mansion built for William Bowers Bourn II and his wife, Agnes Moody Bourn in ...
References
External links
Barry Popikaggregated information about Admiral's Row
government information on Admiral's Row
{{coord, 40.6984, -73.9794, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title
Year of establishment missing
19th-century establishments in New York (state)
Residential buildings completed in the 19th century
Barracks in the United States
Buildings of the United States Navy
Houses in Brooklyn
Military installations in New York (state)
Neighborhoods in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Navy Yard
Buildings and structures demolished in 2016
Demolished buildings and structures in Brooklyn
1864 establishments in New York (state)
2016 disestablishments in New York (state)
Closed installations of the United States Navy