Today Brooklyn Navy Yard houses over 500 businesses, but it has a rich history of being a vital factory during WWII. And now, history is repeating itself.
Different companies that are housed in the Navy Yard have joined forces to use their skills and materials to help fight our new war: coronavirus.
“This is a wartime moment — and New Yorkers are fighting back with everything we’ve got,” Mayor de Blasio said. “The Brooklyn Navy Yard served as a crucial spot during WWII. It was where troops left for battle and where ships were built. Today, it’s a symbol to the city and the nation of extraordinary service in the fight against COVID-19. History has come full circle in a powerful way.”
Lafayette 148, a women’s fashion company, and Crye Precision, which makes military equipment and apparel, are now producing surgical gowns for NYC’s health care workers and first responders on the front line.
The Mayor said that public hospitals have enough gowns to make it through the week, but private hospitals and nursing homes are running low, and the city needs more gowns “urgently.” The Brooklyn Navy Yard operation is starting a new assembly line that will make 300,000 gowns by the end of the month.
Bednark, a full-service fabrication company, is making protective face shields by hand for first responders. Besides just producing them for the safety of hospital workers, they are also providing local jobs, as they have hired about 100 workers and are also supporting local restaurants and suppliers, according to 60 Minutes.
It only took four days to turn an empty building in Brooklyn into a wartime factory producing life-saving face masks for our hospitals.
Never bet against the strength and creativity of New Yorkers.
If you can make supplies, we need you — head to https://t.co/WCiYO4XpX5. pic.twitter.com/i3g905ggjx
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) March 27, 2020
And, Rethink Food, also based in the Navy Yard, is the company that is using Eleven Madison Park’s kitchen to cook healthy meals for hospital workers as well as New Yorkers in need.
See also: The Costume Company Behind HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ Donates Protective Gear To Hospitals
featured image source: Instagram / @nycmayorsoffice