Trivia time: what is the one building in NYC that not only had a train track running through it, but was also used to build entire sections of legendary U.S. battleships?
If you don’t know the answer to that bit of trivia, fear not! For you are looking at photos of this very building! It still exists today, though its previous life as a manufacturing floor for some of the biggest death machines to ever roam the oceans has long past. This building was known by its delightfully unimaginative military designation: Building 128. If you were to visit this building today, you would never have guessed that it sat abandoned for at least fifteen years.
Constructed in 1899, Building 128 was originally used for constructing boilers. During world war two, significant parts of the USS North Carolina, Iowa and USS Missouri battleships were all built here.
Legendary Death Machines
The USS Missouri, of course, is the battleship that the Japanese surrendered on at the end of World War Two. It also served in the Korean war, and Desert Storm (Iraq, early 1990s). Long since retired, it is now part of the Pearl Harbor memorial.
The Abandoned Years
128 was one of the first buildings within the navy yard we got to explore. The year was 2006, and the building was a decaying wreck. Work had only recently begun to clear out debris left over from decades of use & abuse. The massive doors at either end of the track were ripped out, replaced on one end with a rinky-dink chain link fence that we easily circumvented. All of the rare interior photos included here date back this trip.
While we browsed through the tacky floors and dusty nooks of this decaying relic, we discovered signage indicating one of its last residents was a company associated with Weg Industries. Weg is a Brazilian manufacturer of motors and generators, many of them for nautical use. 128 was also used by Sea Train, a ship building company that occupied the dry docks after the Navy left. Sea Train went out of business in 1979. Perhaps Sea Train was a Weg distributor?
New lease on life
So what do you do with a massive abandoned building located inside a now civilian used navy yard? Fortunately, management decided against a complete demolition. Serious renovations finally got underway in 2012. This ‘bando was stripped all the way down to the ironwork and rebuilt around the old bones. Renovations were completed in June 2016, and it was rebranded as the “New Lab“. This new co-working space hosts roughly one hundred small companies, ranging in size from three to twenty employees.
If you’re interested in a more detailed history of the Navy Yard, check out my latest book Abandoned Industries of New York Volume 2
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An excellent story. I can remember being stationed temporarily in the Brooklyn Navy yard while my ship, a “Gearing” class destroyer buit in the mid 1940’s and being FRAM ed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I do remember seeing building#128 and thought about all the great battleship engineering was put together in this old building, especially the U.S.S. “Iowa” BB-61 and the U.S.S. “Missouri” BB-62. I’m glad it was saved’ as there is so much Naval History in this great former New York Naval Shipyard.
Wow, thank you for sharing. I’m often impressed by how of the navy yard remained intact considering how pretty much everything around it has changed.