Asbestos Exposure at the Brooklyn Navy Yard

By David Meldofsky, California-licensed attorney · Founder, Lawsuit Informer

Last updated: June 6, 2026

The Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of the most significant asbestos exposure sites in the country's history. For generations, the people who built and repaired ships there worked around asbestos every day, often without knowing it. This page explains, in plain terms, how and where exposure happened at the yard, who was affected, the illnesses linked to it, and why that history can still matter today.

About the Brooklyn Navy Yard

Established in 1801 on Wallabout Bay in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Navy Yard — formally the New York Naval Shipyard — operated as a U.S. Navy shipbuilding and repair facility for about 165 years, until it was decommissioned in 1966 and sold to the City of New York. At its peak during World War II it employed roughly 70,000 people working around the clock, making it one of New York City's largest single industrial employers.

Over its history the yard built scores of vessels, including the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor and the battleships USS Arizona, launched in 1915, and USS Missouri, launched in 1944 and later the site of Japan's surrender ending World War II. Through the decades when the yard was most active, asbestos was a standard shipbuilding material — which is why so many of the people who worked there were exposed.

Why Asbestos Was Present

Brooklyn was above all a construction yard for capital ships, and nothing in shipbuilding consumed more asbestos than building battleships and carriers from the keel up. A single battleship contained multiple boiler rooms and miles of high-pressure steam piping, all of it insulated, plus asbestos in gaskets, valve packing, insulating block and cement, and the lining of enclosed compartments. During the wartime push that produced ships like USS Missouri, insulation crews worked around the clock alongside every other trade. For the general background on why ships were saturated with these materials, see asbestos exposure in shipyards and naval service.

Where Exposure May Have Happened

On a new-construction yard, exposure followed the ship through its stages of completion:

• The building ways and construction berths, where hulls took shape and insulation work began early
• Fitting-out, when boilers, turbines, and steam lines were installed and lagged while dozens of trades worked the same compartments
• The yard's dry docks, where repair and conversion work disturbed insulation already in place
• Wartime battle-damage repair, which meant tearing out and replacing asbestos materials on ships returning from sea
• Below-deck spaces during construction, where ventilation systems were not yet operating and dust had nowhere to go
• Yard shops, where insulated components and contaminated equipment were fabricated and rebuilt

A ship under construction is an enclosed steel structure full of simultaneous work. A welder or electrician two compartments away from an insulation crew still breathed the same air.

Who May Have Been Exposed

At its WWII peak the yard employed roughly 70,000 people, including the large wartime workforce of women who took up shipyard trades. Those most directly exposed included:

• Insulators applying lagging to new boilers, turbines, and piping
• Boilermakers and pipefitters and steamfitters building the propulsion plants
• Shipfitters, welders, machinists, and electricians sharing compartments with insulation work
• Laborers and sweepers who cleaned up the debris

Navy crews who came aboard during fitting-out and sea trials encountered the same materials, and family members were sometimes exposed to fibers carried home on work clothes, the pattern known as take-home or secondary exposure.

Illnesses Linked to the Exposure

Asbestos disease runs on a decades-long delay. People who built ships at the yard in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s have been diagnosed with mesothelioma (both pleural and peritoneal), asbestos-related lung cancer, and asbestosis many years after the yard itself closed.

Why This History Can Matter in a Claim

The Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of the most thoroughly documented exposure sites in American asbestos litigation, and New York City's consolidated asbestos docket, known as NYCAL, has handled yard-related claims for decades. That history works in a claimant's favor: the materials used there, the suppliers who provided them, and the conditions in the yard have been established in case after case, so an individual claim is building on a well-developed record rather than starting from scratch.

Because the yard closed in 1966, every exposure there is now more than half a century old, which is exactly the timescale on which these diseases surface. The time to bring a claim is generally measured from diagnosis, not from the exposure, and the deadline varies by state. If you are researching on behalf of yourself or a family member, our companion directory can connect you with New York asbestos lawyers who handle these matters, and you can also see who may qualify for an asbestos claim.

Records That Can Help

Because the yard closed in 1966, records take some reconstructing, and that is normal. Federal civilian employment records from the yard era are held by the National Archives, Navy service records can place a sailor aboard ships built or repaired there, and New York union locals kept their own membership and dispatch records. Job titles, dates, the ships or shops worked, and coworkers who remember the conditions all help. For more, see records that help support an asbestos claim.

Common Questions

The yard closed in 1966. Can exposure that old still support a claim?

Often yes. Asbestos disease commonly appears 30 to 60 years after exposure, so diagnoses tracing to the yard's final working decades are still surfacing. The filing clock generally starts at diagnosis, not exposure.

My father worked there and we may have been exposed at home. Does that count?

Take-home exposure claims, based on fibers carried home on work clothing, are a recognized category in asbestos litigation. Household members who later developed asbestos disease have brought them.

I served aboard a ship built at Brooklyn but never worked at the yard. Is this page relevant?

Yes. Ships carried their asbestos with them, and Navy personnel who served aboard yard-built vessels, especially in engineering spaces, encountered the same materials for years afterward.

Related Pages

About the Author

David Meldofsky is a California-licensed attorney and the founder of Lawsuit Informer, an educational platform focused on helping people understand lawsuits, consumer safety issues, and legal rights related to defective products and toxic exposures.

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Last Updated: June 10, 2026

Educational information only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed.