The Wallabout Bay
Transcript of The Wallabout Bay
HISTORY 7760X
SPRING 2012
JAHONGIR USMANOV
RESEARCH PAPER
The Wallabout Bay
pg. 1
“The Wallabout Market” painting hangs in the gallery of the Archives and Special
Collections in the Brooklyn College Library. The artist, who is known only as “R. Adams,”
captured a scene in early 1930s Brooklyn that no longer exists. The open area, surrounded by
Dutch style buildings, was once a bustling market of various wares from all over the New York
City area. The market was demolished during World War II as the Brooklyn Navy Yard was
expanded, but before that happened photographer Al Aumuller captured another scene of the
market on September 1940. The untitled photograph shows a “Vast crowd of trucks and horse-
drawn carts at the Wallabout Market,” a period of time in the history of Brooklyn where one of
Lewis Mumford’s eras meets another or the end of paleotechnic and beginning of neotechnic.1
For students of urban environmental history this event has a special meaning.
New York born Lewis Mumford, wrote “Looking back over the last thousand years, one
can divide the development of the machine and the machine civilization into three successive but
over-lapping and inter penetrating phases: eotechnic, paleotechnic, neotechnic.”2 Mumford’s
first phase can be seen taking shape during the colonization of America. In eotechnic era, water
and wood were primary materials for the growth of settlements, and in the case of Brooklyn this
meant building of wooden mills on rivers and streams. Shipbuilding became a successful
enterprise in the newly emerging United States of America. Factories replaced mills as the
paleotechnic phase in America began to take shape with coal and iron becoming the primary
resource of advancement. Nowhere was this more evident than in shipbuilding, as new ironclads
were powered by steam-engine. With the discovery of oil, “electricity and alloy” the neotechnic
era began to make headways in Brooklyn.
1 Al Aumuller, "Vast crowd of trucks and horse-drawn carts at the Wallabout Market, Brooklyn, N.Y.," Library of
Congress, photograph (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.12738) 2 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963), 109.
pg. 2
Wallabout Bay and its surrounding area experienced changes with each phase of
development as described by Lewis Mumford. Below is the story of one small area in Brooklyn
and the changes it experienced through time from its settlement in the 1600s to the present. My
goal is to show the historical changes of the landscape around Wallabout Bay by employing
Mumford’s phases as a guide. I hope to present a short answer to a basic question: How has the
area changed in the past 400 years?
~*~*~*~
Evan T. Pritchard, who is of Micmac ancestry, writes that in the early sixteenth century,
Brooklyn had “a vast network of trails and villages,” making it one of “the greatest population
center[s]” in the region. The Lanepe people who lived here called themselves Canarsie, which
meant “Grassy Place.” The natives used their canoes (made out of wood but without use of nails)
to navigate extensive rivers and traveled as far as Mexico and Central America. They traded their
wampum and pottery for various copper products.3
Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, which was consolidated in 1898.
Located on the west end of Long Island, its name is of Dutch origin. The Dutch were the earliest
Europeans to colonize the region with the establishment of New Netherland, which stretched
along the east coast of the United States. Manhattan was called New Amsterdam by the Dutch,
who settled the island from its southern tip, closest to Brooklyn.
In 1623, trying to escape the Spanish Inquisition, a number of Walloons arrived in New
Netherland. Among them was a man named Joris Jansen de Rapalje (Rapalie, Rapalye, etc.),
who after his initial residence in Fort Orange (Albany) moved to New Amsterdam in 1626. In
June 1637, de Rapalje purchased 335 acres of land "adjoining the Rennegackonk, a little Long
3 Evan T. Pritchard, Native New Yorkers: the Legacy of the Algonquin People of New York (San Francisco: Council
Oak Books, 2002) 101-102.
pg. 3
Island stream entering the East River at 'the bend of Marechkawieck.’”4 Many others soon
followed de Rapalje, and a number of those must have been Walloons, for the location became
known as waalebocht (Bay of Walloons) by the Dutch, from which the modern Wallabout
derives its name.5
By the 1660s, Brooklyn consisted of six towns; five Dutch (Brooklyn, Bushwick,
Flatbush, Flatlands, and New Utrecht) and one English (Gravesend). The region soon came
under the control of the British Empire, with New Amsterdam becoming New York. With the
establishment of the old towns, we have some clues as to what the region looked like at this time.
A ferry, which exists to this day at the end of Old Fulton Street, was the main entrance
through which settlers came to Long Island from the island of Manhattan in the early 1600s.
When settlers from Manhattan landed on the shore, they named it Breuckelen, which is Dutch for
“marshy land.”6 Those who came to Wallabout Bay arrived at “Marechkawick [which] means
‘gathering at the sandy place.’”7 After de Rapelje settled in Wallabout, his son-in-law, Hans
Hansen Bergen bought an adjacent plot of land, which later became Boswijck, “The Land of the
Woods.”8 Thus the lower bays were marshy and sandy and higher elevations were covered by
forests, with several creeks flowing from inland into the bay.
The natives of Brooklyn used their land for farming, and they grew corn, beans, and
squash on the same plot of land. The beans would be planted next to corn, whose stalks became
4 Stephen M. Ostrander, A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County, Volume I (Brooklyn, 1894), 31.
5 The Walloons are French speaking people, who are called by the Dutch Waal, which like an Old Germanic Wahl
have the meaning of “foreigner” or “stranger,” and bocht is Dutch for “curve, bend, or bay” from The
Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 1 (New York: S. Hueston, 1852), 2; Henry R. Stiles,
A History of the City of Brooklyn, including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the
village and city of Williamsburgh, Volume I (Brooklyn, 1867), 239; Samuel Smiles, The Huguenots: their
settlements, churches, and industries in England and Ireland (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1868), 429;
Ostrander, 25; and Gustave Straubenmüller, A Home Geography of New York City (New York, 1905), 227. 6 Straubenmüller, 226.
7 Pritchard, 105.
8 Ostrander, 100; also “heavy woods” in Henry R. Stiles, A History of the Town of Bushwick, Kings County, N.Y.,
(Brooklyn, 1884), 14.
pg. 4
poles for the legume to climb, and squash, with its large leaves, would protect the roots of both
plants. This cycle of planting was known as “three sisters.” The Lenape also grew tobacco,
which they used “as currency as it was portable, useful, and plentiful.”9 But the Lanepe did not
use agriculture so much that it would visually change the layout of the land. If they did, the
Europeans would not have “wooden” toponyms for their towns. Thus, the first change in the
Wallabout area of Brooklyn was
undertaken by the settlers.
On July 15, 1745, The
New York Evening Post
reported: “On Saturday last the
Barn of one Mr. Rapelje, living
near Hell-Gate, took Fire by the
Lightning; the Barn together
with all the Wheat, Rye, Barly,
&c. was burnt in a very short time to Ashes.”10
The fact that a barn was caught on fire by
lightning is an astounding occurrence on its own. However, an interesting clue hides within the
report that tells of a change that took place in the Wallabout Bay area since the times of Joris
Jansen de Rapalje. The three grains, wheat, rye and barley, which were stored in the Rapelje
barn, indicate that the family owned a substantial number of farms to grow them simultaneously.
By 1766, as the American cartographer Bernard Ratzer captured the layout of the land on
one of his famous works (see the image above), farms of varying sizes covered the area where
forest once stood. A belt of marshland ran along the coast of Wallabout Bay, flanked on the low
9 Pritchard, 39-40, 79.
10 The New York Evening Post, July 15, 1745, issue 34, page 4 (Archive of Americana)
pg. 5
side by mudflats and on higher elevation by orchards and grain fields. There was a major
roadway which ran from the ferry in northwest Brooklyn toward the towns in the southeast; it
split into a fork after a mile or so, one road leading to Jamaica and the other to Flatbush. A
network of smaller roads from various farms connected to the highway. These roads lead
travelers and traders to a house of the owner of land, next to which there was often a barn and an
area for fishing if the land was closer to water.11
One of the roads from the “Brookland Parish,” an area just before the Jamaica-Flatbush
fork, lead northeast toward Wallabout Bay. This road ended at the former Rapelje family lands.
When Ratzer made his map in 1766, he showed a bridge built over the Rennegackonk, either by
the Rapeljes or the new landowners, who used both sides of the stream for farming. On the west
side of Wallabout Bay, Ratzer also recorded “Remsen’s Mill,” which was fed water by a “Mill
Dam.” Mills were becoming one of the more common structures in the region as Ratzer’s map
shows a dozen of them throughout Brooklyn. In May of 1797, there were several advertisements
in the local newspaper made by Silas Betts of Kings County, Long Island. He had received a
patent in March of the same year for "THE HORIZONTAL FOLDING FLOAT WHEEL." Betts
built a mill of his own in the Wallabout, and “Grain [was] immediately received for the purpose
of grinding, and business punctually attended to.”12
In 1804, American Citizen reported an outbreak of disease in the Wallabout. “About the
20th
of last June cases of malignant fever suddenly appeared at the Wallabout, on Long Island, at
11
Michael Wilson, “A 240-Year-Old Map Is Reborn,” The New York Times, January 16, 2011
(http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/17/nyregion/20110117-map-restoration.html?ref=nyregion); Carolyn,
"Wallabout Bay and the Brooklyn Navy Yard," the Brooklyn Historical Society blog, November 18, 2011, image 1
(http://brooklynhistory.org/blog/tag/wallabout-bay/); and Bernard Ratzer’s map on Brooklyn Genealogy Info
website as derived from Manual of the Common Council of the City of Brooklyn for 1864 compiled by Henry
McCloskey (http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Map/1766.Vill.Bklyn.html) 12
The Diary and Mercantile Advertiser or Loudon’s Register, May 16, 1797(issue 1630, page 3) and May 29, 1797
(issue 1641, page 4) (Archive of Americana); also, John Marshall's letter to Jonathan Dayton, August 11, 1800 from
Collection #GLC02492 in The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (the website address is too long to
display, but a Google search easily leads to the location)
pg. 6
Mr. Jackson’s shipyard, near the navy yard of the United States-where a large number of ship-
carpenters and other labourers were collected, and where ship building is carried on to a
considerable extent.”13
John Jackson,14
who had established a shipyard in Wallabout Bay
sometimes during the Revolutionary War, had sold a portion of his land to Francis Childs, an
agent of the United States government. The land which Jackson sold included “a new and
valuable mill, two good houses, the ship yard and dock at which the frigate Adams was built, and
other improvements.”15
Thus was the stage of eotechnic phase in the Wallabout Bay area of
Brooklyn.
With the purchase of land in the Wallabout Bay by the federal government, the area
began acquiring its industrial lay out. The shipyard has been known by many names ever since,
but for the residents of Brooklyn it has always been the Brooklyn Navy Yard. As a government
policy, more private land was purchased from the local families over time, eventually extending
the borders of the yard to match its current location.16
By 1805, the first five buildings were
constructed in the yard, and on July 1, 1824 more land was acquired for further development.
"All that certain tract, piece or parcel of upland, salt meadow and marsh" including "the
Wallabout creek [and totaling] about thirty-three acres," was bought from the Schenck and
Harris families of Brooklyn.17
On this plot of land, a hospital was built in 1838, which consisted
of one building. In two years, the building of the marine hospital was fitted with two wings of
equal height and style. Another building, which stood separately, eventually became a naval
13
American Citizen, August 21, 1804, volume 5, issue 1366, page 2 (Archive of Americana) 14
This was the same John Jackson, who would later donate a portion of his land to the building of a memorial in
honor of the Wallabout Bay Prisoners. Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American
Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 212. 15
The Spectator, April 15, 1801, volume IV, issue 735, page 4 (Archive of Americana) 16
S. B. Luce, “The Navy and Its Needs,” The North American Review 193:665 (April 1911), 494-507 17
Hiram Denio and William Tracy, The Revised Statutes of the State of New York, Volume I (New York: Banks,
Gould & Co., 1852), 95-96.
pg. 7
laboratory. Moreover, "Connected with the grounds [was] a naval cemetery, where many officers
and members of their families have been buried, as well as sailors and marines.”18
Russell Granger, the founder and CEO of Arch Digitals Company, had posted an 1857
image (below) of the Navy Yard Hospital on his blog. He wrote that soon after the image was
made, the "bucolic arrangement of crested shoreline and wetlands known as Wallabout Bay
[was] filled in, bit by bit, to accommodate the growing Navy Yard,” but then he adds “The Navy
Yard was indeed a romantic destination for most of the nineteenth century.”19
Perhaps the biggest and most expensive change to the layout of the land was made in
1851 with the completion of the first Dry Dock. To this day, it “is the oldest dry dock in the
Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the third oldest in the country…It was a huge innovation for its time,
and had a price tag to match... $2 million in 1851 dollars!”20
The technological innovation for
building the dry dock was the steam powered pile driver. However, it wasn’t the first time when
18
“Naval Hospital, Brooklyn,” A Naval Encyclopædia, 1881 ed. 19
Russell Grange, “Navy Yard” (June 1, 2010) and “Wallabout” (July 1st, 2008), Whitman's Brooklyn
(http://www.whitmans-brooklyn.org/category/). 20
NWhyC, Dry Dock #1, Brooklyn Navy Yard, April 21, 2009 (http://citynoise.org/article/9284/by/NWhyC)
pg. 8
steam engineering was in application in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1814, Demologos became
the first and by 1837 Fulton II became the second steam powered vessel to leave the shores of
the yard.21
At the completion of the American Civil War in 1865, the Brooklyn Navy Yard
gained greater importance, and the technological advancements became more numerous.
"Technological developments, including screw propellers, armor plate, and gun turrets, arrived in
rapid succession, and by the dawn of the 20th century, the old days were over.”22
While a number of changes came to the Wallabout area from within the Brooklyn Navy
Yard, the citizens the city of Brooklyn were gathering outside with a change of their own in
mind. In late 1871, The Eagle began a column called “The Market Question”:
“Every Brooklynite sees and admits the folly of letting the Long Island farmer
drive through Brooklyn to New York with his produce, and then the Brooklyn
grocer drive over after him and buy back from the New York middleman, or from
the farmer himself, the food which is to be eaten in Brooklyn, and which has no
more business to be carried past Brooklyn to New York than it would have to be
sent on to Philadelphia and returned thence to this city.”23
What this column indicates is that by the 1870s, Brooklyn itself had experienced the
effects of industrialization, whereby it transitioned from the farming settlements to a city of
residential neighborhoods. By 1832, the area between the west end of Wallabout Bay and the
Ferry had acquired the gridiron features that are common to the streets of Manhattan. A decade
21
Chronological History of the BNY (http://www.brooklynnavyyard.org/history.html) 22
Thomas F. Berner, The Brooklyn Navy Yard (USA: Arcadia Publishing, 1999), 29. 23
“The Market Question,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 9, 1871, page 2.
pg. 9
later, the entire bay was surrounded by streets.24
Thus, to remedy the problem of food, a
Common Council was formed, and with a group of Long Island farmers, the question of
establishing a Brooklyn market was raised.
In June 1876, “The Wallabout Market Bill” passed Congress, and “A Commission of
Three [was] Appointed by the President to Make Equitable Terms With Brooklyn and Report to
the Secretary of the Navy.”25
On February 26, 1877, the president of the United States signed the
bill, which reversed (even if temporarily) the policy of land acquisition and a plot of land was
sold to the government of New York City for the development of Wallabout market. Situated
north of Flushing Avenue, right in front of the Naval Hospital with its “back” open to the bay,
the Wallabout Market was built in 1884. There were a total of ten buildings lined in an L shape
for indoor trading, with a clock tower facing the open area for all the outdoor business.26
What Thomas F. Berner called “The Age of Transition,” matches well with what Lewis
Mumford said regarding the technological phases and their “over-lapping and inter penetrating”
nature. But Mumford added, for the paleotechnic phase “1900 [w]as the start of an accelerating
downward movement.”27
Aumuller’s photograph of September 1940 shows the open area of the
Wallabout market lined with horse drawn carts full of bags and bins with farmers’ products. The
carts are parked right next to numerous automobiles, vehicles of transportation that are a sure
sign of the eotechnic era. On the left corner of the photograph, behind the market buildings, there
is The Hammerhead Crane, largest in the world at the time, which was used by the shipping
companies to load containers onto their water vessels. In the far distance, another historical
24
“1832” and “1843” in Maps and Views (http://www.whitmans-brooklyn.org/maps-and-views/) 25
“The Market,” Eagle, June 19, 1976, page 2. 26
“Wallabout Market,” Library of Congress, lithograph (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004666892/). The only
reference to the date of the completion of market is in New York Legislative Documents, (Albany: J. B. Lyon
Company, 1921), 336. 27
Mumford, 155.
pg. 10
landmark which at the time of its building forced many a change upon the landscape of the city:
the Brooklyn Bridge. And on the right corner, one can see the child of the Industrial Age, a
factory with its three pronged smoke stacks. In between all the vehicles on the ground, there are
hundreds of people, hustling and bustling in their daily routines.
As the war in Europe approached the shores of the United States in 1941, the need for
more warships was obvious. The Wallabout Market had to make way to the expanding Brooklyn
Navy Yard, which by now had employed 70,000 people. Women were also part of the workforce
“at the Yard as mechanics and technicians.”28
The “Mighty Mo” USS Missouri was launched in
1944 from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Equipped with radar technology, the class Iowa battleship
was fit to detect enemy submarines, and with its “16-inch guns [Missouri] provided direct and
continuous support to the invasion” of Iwo Jima.”29
During the Korean War, three aircraft
carriers were launched from the Yard, namely USS Saratoga, Constellation and Independence.
Before the yard closed in 1966, there was one major landscape change that took place,
the building of the “6 amphibious transport Landing Platform Docks.” The land was sold to the
government of New York State, and four years later it was reopened as the premier industrial
park.30
On May 10, 2012, at the last student event of the Archival Studies minor program held in
Brooklyn College Library, Daniella Romano who is the Vice President of Programs, Research,
and Archive at the Brooklyn Navy Yard gave a presentation about the yard’s history. Part of her
presentation was a history of USS Brooklyn, which was launched in 1934 from the Brooklyn
Navy Yard. One of the first things she said, pointing at the photograph of the industrial park, was
how the area is completely a man made landscape.
28
Chronological History of the BNY 29
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/m12/missouri-iii.htm) 30
Chronological History of the BNY
pg. 11
Today, there is no sign of a farm that once produced food for the settlers, nor any
remnants of a market which sold food remains. Instead, there are several buildings which serve
as warehouses, and a long building of the “Steiner Studios [which] provides New York City with
its first Hollywood-style (and scale) production and support facility.”31
The yard is managed by
the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation on behalf of the government of New York
City. It is an Industrial Park with 40 various buildings, over 275 tenants and 6000 workers.
Currently there are plans for expansion underway, with “Five additional major new green
industrial buildings and adaptive reuses of historic structures are in design.”32
Building 92 on the grounds of the yard aims “to celebrate the Navy Yard’s past, present
and future, and to promote the role the Yard and its tenants play as an engine for job creation and
sustainable urban industrial growth.”33
To that extent, there are several galleries and exhibits on
display which show the history of the yard for the curious public. On my recent trip to Building
92, I was shown an interactive map, which is projected from the ceiling onto a round table on the
floor; on the rims of the table, a time scale is shown dating between 1600 to 2000 with a
silhouette of a battleship floating through the scale. As the battleship moves through time, the
image on the table changes. For the 1600s, there is a map of Wallabout Bay with a few huts
doting the landscape and forest hugging the bay on three sides; when the ship moves a hundred
year forward, the image according to the records shows the changing scenes, with larger clusters
of settled areas and fewer trees. By the 20th
century, images of ironclads and battleships moving
on the water and automobiles honking through the streets are projected. The magical table is an
excellent visual guide of a 400 year history in the span of some five minutes. It is both
educational and entertaining.
31
Steiner Studious Overview (http://www.steinerstudios.com/projectsummary.html) 32
Open Development Opportunities, BNY (http://www.brooklynnavyyard.org/dev_opp.html) 33
About Us, Bldg 92 Brooklyn Navy Yard Center (http://bldg92.org/about/)
pg. 12
Brian Donahue in the chapter on the remaking of Boston, wrote “If we follow the
Mumfordian paradigm, it seems clear that the next shape of city and countryside will depend on
a shift in energy base.”34
Perhaps with the solar panels and wind propellers installed in various
locations to power some of the industrial buildings in Brooklyn Navy Yard, we are currently at
threshold of a new era. Lewis Mumford offered three distinct phases of technological
development, and perhaps we wouldn’t be too far off if we call the next stage green-technics.
This name would closely reflect the eotechnic ways of the Lenape, who received their sustenance
from nature, and at the same time indicate our forward looking view when we build our green
spaces on top of the concrete landscape.
34
Brian Donahue, “Remaking Boston, Remaking Massachusetts,” chapter 6 in Penna and Wright, eds. Remaking
Boston: An Environmental History of the City and Its Surroundings (2009), 124.