HISTORY
The former Brooklyn Naval Hospital Cemetery is located in the southeast corner of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Established on the shores of Wallabout Bay, the Navy Yard served as America’s premier Naval shipbuilding facility from 1801 until 1966. Today the 300-acre industrial park is owned by the City of New York and managed by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC).
In 1824, the Navy purchased nearby land to build the Brooklyn Naval Hospital, which included the cemetery site. Opened in 1838, the Hospital became a leading center of medical innovation, developing new techniques in anesthetics, wound care, and physical therapy. The hospital closed in 1948, but the property remained in use as a Naval receiving station until 1990.
The Brooklyn Naval Hospital Cemetery was active from 1831 to 1910 and was the burial site for more than 2,000 people, most of them officers and enlisted men of the US Navy and Marine Corps. Among those buried were two Congressional Medal of Honor winners, a Fijian Chief and individuals from more than 20 different countries. It is estimated that roughly 10% of all the service members buried at the site were of African descent.
In 1926, the Navy relocated individuals buried in the cemetery to Cypress Hills National Cemetery. In the 1990’s, extensive archival and archaeological investigations of the site concluded that the remains of 987 individuals were recorded as being relocated, leaving hundreds of burials unaccounted for and potentially still at the site.
The Naval Cemetery Landscape is a project of Brooklyn Greenway Initiative to create a publicly-accessible green space which will revitalize the native plant and pollinator populations in the region and Its design includes a raised walkway to allow visitors to enter the space without disturbing the hallowed ground.
Learn more about the history and present development of this site and of the Brooklyn Navy Yard at BLDG 92, located at the corner of Flushing Avenue and Carlton Avenue.
Read more about the history here:
(This link includes a photograph of the Naval Cemetery with tombstones.)
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Design & Nature
The entrance to the Naval Cemetery Landscape acts as threshold to a wildflower meadow and sacred grove, framed by an undulating boardwalk and lifted above the hallowed ground. This experience evokes the histories of settlement and cultivation, life and death, while slowing the heart rate and connecting visitors with the stories of the site. The wildflower meadow, with more than fifty species of native plants, offers much needed fodder for the pollinators critical to the ecological health of the region. Initially established in a strict geometric arrangement, the plantings will eventually drift across the site, creating new patterns and establishing a self-sustaining, ‘open-ended’ ecology intended to draw people, birds, moths and bees in a rich celebration of life.
Awards
Charter Sponsors
Through partnership with Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC), Brooklyn Greenway Initiative designed and completed the restoration of the site, which opened in spring 2016.
The installation project was a collaboration between Brooklyn Greenway Initiative BNYDC, the Horticultural Society of New York (The Hort), TKF Foundation as part of the National Open Spaces Sacred Places Initiative, Marvel Architects, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, Columbia University, GRANT engineering, The Green School, an environmentally themed high school, and Brooklyn Community Housing and Services (BCHANDS), an operator of assisted living facilities for populations including the chronically homeless.
Initial funding was also provided to Brooklyn Greenway Initiative by ConEdison, TKF Foundation, New York State Department of State under Title 11 of the New York State Environmental Protection Fund, Former Council Member Steve Levin, Former Council Member Letitia James.
As of 2023, Brooklyn Greenway Initiative alone operates and maintains the space and is able to keep it thriving and open to the public with funds they raise for this purpose. See current program sponsors supporting BGI’s programs on our “Visit” page.