Trip to Brooklyn Flatbush Avenue (New York, Bedford: houses, neighborhoods, military)

[HyggeligKar]

Hi,

had some magnificent 9 days in New York — my third trip. What can you say about this city. It's magnificent. Will travel soon again.
I was travelling with three others, two of them which had never seen the city. In other words, lots of the usual touristy stuff, but we also took a trip to Brooklyn.
We walked from Williamsburg (Bedford Ave) through a very jewish neighborhood (does anybody know what this area is called? Apparently we walked there right at the sabbath time. Very fascinating.) until we cross Flatbush Ave, which we followed westwards until we got to the DUMBO area (then over Br. Bridge to Manhattan). It was a long walk, but it was fun to experience som other neighborhoods than those located in Manhattan (Williamsburg was very lovely, DUMBO as well. Nices cafés).
However, as we walked along Flatbush Ave (from Bedford Av nearly to the shore / east river), apart from it looking almost deserted (saturday afternoon), we noticed this huge, locked-down area, some sort of Goverment Property. Some houses was nearly covered in plants. The whole area was pretty run-down. Does the goverment use the area to something? Are anyone familiar with this?

Would be wonderful to know a little bit more about this.

Thanks in advance! This is a great forum, have a nice day!

[bluedog2]

You were probably in Williamsburg the whole time.It is a large area and the "hip" Bedford Ave area is at the very northern and western edge and is only a very small part of it.
All of Williamsburg is a very Hasidic area and that is probably what you were walking through.
The abandoned looking facility was probably the old Brooklyn Navy Yard .

Hasidic Williamsburg
Further information: Mod cut: copyrighted material

Congratulations on you sense of adventure.Most tourists would never think to explore part of the "real" New York .

[makossa]

That was the former "Brooklyn Navy Yard". There's actually some activity of some sorts going on in there, although I suspect it's non-military (???)

I was in there on business about 2 months ago at an artists advertising studio. It was in what was obviously a former factory of some kind, the ceilings must have been 20 ft. high!!!

It's high security getting in there.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by makossa

That was the former "Brooklyn Navy Yard". There's actually some activity of some sorts going on in there, although I suspect it's non-military (???)

No sir...if the OP was walking on Flatbush Avenue, then it most certainly was NOT the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is not located along that street.

What would be helpful was if we knew exactly where along Flatbush this huge, locked down area was spotted. (Rereading that post, I wonder if they meant Flushing Avenue, in which case it probably was the Navy Yard).

The Navy Yard was taken out of government service in 1966. These days, it's an industrial park--there are all sorts of businesses located there. The abandoned buildings fronting on Flushing Avenue were barracks and officers' quarters.

[HyggeligKar]

Our trip in brooklyn - Google Maps

Sorry guys, I meant Flushing Ave, not Flatbush ave… I remembered wrongly.

Thx guys

[UpstaterInBklyn]

The plant-covered houses you saw were probably "Admiral's Row", which are former officer's quarters from the time when the Navy Yard was an active military base and naval shipbuilding facility.

Those structures have been in the news a lot lately. They are over 150 years old and have been abandoned and neglected since the 1970s. They are currently owned by the National Guard, although the city owns the rest of the Navy Yard property. The National Guard wants to turn them over to the city, which wants to demolish them to allow a supermarket to be built on the site, but preservationists objected because the old houses are historic, so a compromise was reached wherein two the old houses will be saved and eight will come down.

If you want more info:
The Brooklyn Paper: BREAKING NEWS: Admirals Row will come down