1838 Marine Hospital Annex, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn

Deep in the heart of Brooklyn lies some urban archeology that is the closest thing New York City has to Cambodia's Angkor Wat. The Navy Yard Hospital Building and the Surgeon's Residence are both designated as NYC Landmark buildings. Technically, they lie outside of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and can be viewed through the gates on Flushing Ave. - they were referred to as an "Annex of the U.S. Naval Receiving Station, Brooklyn, NY." The property was acquired in 1966 by the City of New York and administered by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp.

During the Civil War, the hospital would supply over 1/3 of the medicines used by the Union troops.

According to the AIA Guide to NYC, the Greek Revival hospital is made of marble quarried locally (Sing Sing) by those hapless prisoners. AIA suggests that such buildings were inspirational for Albert Speer's visions for Hitler's Berlin. Martin E. Thompson was a talented Greek Revivalist architect. Excellent photos of both the Hospital and the French Empire Surgeon's House (with a concave-profiled mansard roof) appear on the web inadvertently uploaded to the Quarters A NRHP site at http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/74001252.pdf. A tall flagpole and obscure memorial commemorating soldiers who died in the Canton River (now Guangzhou and Pearl River) in 1856 during the Battle of the Barrier Forts at the beginning of the 2nd Opium War are the only clues of a stately lawn long forgotten. A photo in Berner's The Brooklyn Naval Yard shows the Canton memorial originally stood at the Sands St. gate.

The Kingston Lounge (who advertise as guerrilla preservationists and urban archeologist's) have fabulous photos of the Annex at http://kingstonlounge.blogspot.com/2009/02/brooklyn-navy-yard-hospital-complex.html.