HISTORY 7760X SPRING 2012 JAHONGIR USMANOV RESEARCH PAPER. The Wallabout Bay

Transcription

1 HISTORY 7760X SPRING 2012 JAHONGIR USMANOV RESEARCH PAPER The Wallabout Bay

2 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 The untitled photograph shows a Vast crowd of trucks and horsedrawn 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 ( 2 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963), 109. pg. 1

3 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 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 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) pg. 2

4 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), 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), Straubenmüller, Pritchard, Ostrander, 100; also heavy woods in Henry R. Stiles, A History of the Town of Bushwick, Kings County, N.Y., (Brooklyn, 1884), 14. pg. 3

5 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, The New York Evening Post, July 15, 1745, issue 34, page 4 (Archive of Americana) pg. 4

6 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 20 th 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 ( Carolyn, "Wallabout Bay and the Brooklyn Navy Yard," the Brooklyn Historical Society blog, November 18, 2011, image 1 ( 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 ( 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. 5

7 Mr. Jackson s shipyard, near the navy yard of the United States-where a large number of shipcarpenters 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), 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), Hiram Denio and William Tracy, The Revised Statutes of the State of New York, Volume I (New York: Banks, Gould & Co., 1852), pg. 6

8 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 ( 20 NWhyC, Dry Dock #1, Brooklyn Navy Yard, April 21, 2009 ( pg. 7

9 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 ( 22 Thomas F. Berner, The Brooklyn Navy Yard (USA: Arcadia Publishing, 1999), The Market Question, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 9, 1871, page 2. pg. 8

10 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 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 and 1843 in Maps and Views ( 25 The Market, Eagle, June 19, 1976, page Wallabout Market, Library of Congress, lithograph ( The only reference to the date of the completion of market is in New York Legislative Documents, (Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1921), Mumford, 155. pg. 9

11 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 ( 30 Chronological History of the BNY pg. 10

12 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 20 th 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 ( 32 Open Development Opportunities, BNY ( 33 About Us, Bldg 92 Brooklyn Navy Yard Center ( pg. 11

13 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. pg. 12