The Brig

The Brig was on the top (sixth) floor.
Receiving Station, New York Naval Shipyard (RECSTA) was a temporary home for Michelson's navy detachment while the old ship was being overhauled across the street in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. All or part of the top floor was used as the third naval district brig, or naval prison, with marines guarding the detainees, convicts and other offenders.

As there was no room in the navy yard, RECSTA was built in 1940 on an entire block of condemned land at 136 Flushing Avenue. There were six floors, built of reinforced concrete. Over the years many thousands of sailors used the place as a hotel on their way out to fleet assignments or while their ships were in the yard.

After the shipyard closed in 1966 the receiving station building became home to the Brooklyn Naval Support Activity, which managed the few remaining navy activities in the yard. It continued to be temporary housing and home for the brig. Around 1975 the navy moved out. 

Meanwhile, the navy yard's fate was negotiated between Washington and the City of New York, which eventually took title. For a while the now defunct Seatrain Lines steamship company operated the shipyard, then left in 1979. Since then the city has leased out parts of the navy yard for diversified business use. Tenants include a sugar substitute factory and movie studio.

At some time, perhaps as late as 1984, the city Department of Corrections reopened the old RECSTA building as a prison. The city's Rikers Island jail was full. I remember driving by on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) in the late 1980s and seeing the building surrounded by barbed wire and coils of concertina razor wire. It looked like a war zone, Brooklyn's Fort Apache.

According to web references, the US government also housed immigration detainees there in what came to be known as the Brooklyn Correctional Facility. Unofficially, it was popularly known around Brooklyn as "the brig", ignoring its long history as a government run hotel for more or less innocent sailors in transit.

The receiving station as a prison,before the barbed wire.
The former receiving station, prison, brig was torn down in 2005, leaving the entire block empty except for the former navy dental building facing the BQE. Now, the block is being redeveloped into 432 condos, townhouses, apartments and retail stores by various builders, marketed as "The Brig". 


Concept drawing of "The Brig" development.
A new upscale supermarket (Wegmans) is planned for across the street where the civil war vintage "admirals' row" houses remain, vandalized and abandoned. Yes, Brooklyn's post industrial Flushing Avenue is becoming gentrified.