#414 The Brooklyn Navy Yard and Vinegar Hill

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

The tale of the Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of New York's true epic adventures, mirroring the course of American history via the ships manufactured here and the people employed to make them.

The Navy Yard's origins within Wallabout Bay tie it to the birth of the United States itself, the spot where thousands of men and women were kept in prison ships during the Revolutionary War.

Within this bay where thousands of American patriots died would rise one of this country’s largest naval yards. It was built for the service and protection of the very country those men and women died for. A complex that would then create weapons of war for other battles -- and jobs for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.

In this episode, Greg is joined by the amazing Andrew Gustafson from Turnstile Tours who unfurls the surprising history of the Navy Yard -- through war and peace, through new technologies and aging infrastructure, through the lives of the men and women who built the yard's reputation.

And the story extends to the tiny neighborhood of Vinegar Hill, famed for its early 19th-century architecture and the mysterious mansion known as the Commandant's House.

FEATURING the origin story of Brooklyn's most sacred public monument -- at home not in Vinegar Hill (at least not anymore) but in Fort Greene.

Visit our website for more information and also head to Turnstile Tours for information on their tours of the Navy Yard.