A Look at the Old Brooklyn Navy Yard

We got an email yesterday from Frank Trezza, the author of Brooklyn Steel-Blood Tenacity, directing us to his website. He wrote that "I worked in the Yard from 1973 until 1980 for Seatrain Shipbuilding. We Built 4 Super Tankers, 1 Ice Breaker Barge, 8 Ocean Going Barges and started 2 Ro-Ro's." We're fascinated by the all the years when the Navy Yard was a very active ship building facility and by all of the surviving structures there. (Apparently, many other people are as well, given the huge number of requests for the tour offered during Open House New York.) We were inside the Yard earlier this year when PortSide New York's Mary Whalen was having work done there, but weren't able to have a look around. We digress, however, Mr. Trezza's website is full of fascinating photos. Meanwhile, he says of the book:

This book will take the reader into the world of shipbuilding where the working class of Brooklyn built VLCC's Oil Tankers [Super Tankers], Ro-Ro's barges and an Ice Breaker Barge inside the Old Brooklyn Navy Yard against all odds. This in itself might be interesting, but the real story is in: the daily struggle of the workers working in hellish conditions, just trying to make a living, with more than a few giving their lives in some horrible ways building these ships. As my Boss first told me when he hired me "if you can work here you can work any where!" He was not joking! The triangle of passionate dislike between the workers, management, the union [the government in the center of the triangle] are also detailed!

You can check out the site by clicking here.