Walkabout: The Bushes and Brooklyn’s Industry City, Part 5

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 6 of this story.

For thousands of workers, Bush Terminal, in Sunset Park, was Brooklyn, for the first half of the 20th century. This massive complex of warehouses, factories, rail yards and shipyards was the largest employer in the borough, employing tens of thousands of people. The Great Depression caused the Terminal to go into receivership, but in spite of that, the massive entity continued on; factories produced, although at lower levels, and ships and trains loaded and unloaded. Life went on. Then World War II broke out, and the Terminal, as well as its neighbor, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, was once again at the center of wartime activities. As in World War I, the government seized Bush Terminal, and used its facilities for shipping wartime supplies to Europe.

The founder and owner of Bush Terminal was Irving T. Bush. Beginning in 1902, he built this massive complex on the site of his father’s oil refinery, at 25th Street, on the riverfront, in Sunset Park. The complex went from massive folly (“It will never work!”) to massive success (“Bush is an innovative genius!”) in the space of only a few years. For more background, please see the links at the end of the story. World War I saw the complex taken over by the government for military use. Irving Bush responded by offering to build another complex for the military; the Brooklyn Army Terminal, right next door to his own facilities.

That complex, designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert, was begun in 1918, and finished only a year later. The innovative details of this building will be covered at another time, as it is a fascinating and important series of buildings, but for the sake of our story here, the two complexes are tied together by Bush’s involvement, and because together, they define industrial Sunset Park.

In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt started his campaign tour of New York City here, visiting both the Bush and Army Terminals. During World War I, the young Roosevelt had been the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and had commandeered parts of Bush Terminal for that war’s efforts. Twenty-six years later, he was President of the United States, and the country was in need of the Terminal again.

Over the course of the war, both the Army and Bush Terminals were used to ship goods and soldiers to war. The Army Terminal alone saw three million troops pass through its gates, as well as 37 million tons of supplies. Over 56,000 military and civilian personnel were employed there in some capacity. The war took tens of thousands of men out of the manufacturing sector and into the military, and all across the country, women stepped in to take their place. It was no different at Bush Terminal. Women became welders, as in the the famous “Rosie the Riveter”. At the Terminal, they also took some of the longshoremen’s jobs. A vintage photograph shows a group of women called the “longshoregirls,” taken in 1944, at Bush Terminal.

It’s hard today to imagine what the two terminals must have been like then. Together, they stretched the length of Sunset Park, from 3rd Avenue to the river; Bush Terminal from 27th Street to 50th Street, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, from 58th to 63rd Streets. During the war, the security must have been massive, and in spite of that, thousands of workers, both civilian and military bustled around like ants in an anthill, all working furiously to get goods and people to the battlefields and supply depots of Europe and North Africa.

There is a fascinating photo montage showing the railroad cars and boats used in the repatriation of remains from Europe back to the United States, in 1947. Photographer Michael Rougier shot a series of photographs showing these “burial cars” being loaded with caskets from ships, then rolling though the Terminal, and then loaded on barges to be floated to Manhattan or New Jersey to cross-country tracks. The photographs show the enormity of the terminal and its buildings, as well as the enormity of the task of repatriating the dead of World War II. The link is here, at trainweb.com.

War, as we all know, can boost an economy, and World War II is perhaps the best example of how that works. The war brought the United States out of the Great Depression. The financial health of the nation is of little comfort for the loss of millions of people, but places like Bush Terminal got a financial shot in the arm that employed a lot of people, and kept families going. When the war ended, and the troops came home, it was to a different Brooklyn.

As war related industries closed down, Sunset Park saw great changes. Robert Moses had already begun the changes in 1939, by building the Gowanus Expressway, cutting it right along 3rd Avenue. The Expressway was built on the elevated pillars of the old BMT 3rd Avenue elevated train line, which had been decommissioned when the 4th Avenue subway lines were created. The El had made it possible for thousands of workers to commute to the front doors of the terminal buildings. Since the old pillars were still there, Moses argued, “Why waste them?”, and had little opposition from anyone on the City Council, and the plans for the Expressway were approved.

Of course, there is a big difference between railroad tracks and a large highway, and it soon became necessary for vast swaths of buildings on 3rd Avenue to be destroyed, in order to widen the highway, and provide off and on ramps. The Expressway resulted in a becoming a large wall that separated the Terminals from the rest of Sunset Park. Even though the working class residents of the neighborhood argued for placing the highway closer to the waterfront, their concerns were totally ignored. In 1955, even more buildings were torn down, as the roadway was expanded from four to six lanes, further isolating this part of Sunset Park.

Irving T. Bush died in 1948, having lived and prospered through two world wars, and changes in industry and technology that he probably never imagined. In 1950, his niece, Helen Tunison, presided over the unveiling of a statue of Bush, which was placed in front of the Terminal’s Administration Building. Our next and last post on this great Terminal will cover the changes in industry in Sunset Park, and the changes at the Terminal, including even the name.

Part One: The Bushes and Brooklyn’s Industry City
Part Two: The Bushes and Brooklyn’s Industry City
Part Three: The Bushes and Brooklyn’s Industry City
Part Four: The Bushes and Brooklyn’s Industry City