Philadelphia Naval Shipyard Historic District

Occupying about 482 acres at the south end of Broad Street on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, this former Navy yard grew from a nineteenth-century core into a complex of shops, dry docks, piers, barracks and warehouses. The first permanent building, a Yard and Dock storehouse, was begun in 1873 and completed in 1875. The yard was founded on League Island, a marshy tract acquired in 1868, and it expanded through a dredging and fill program. Its significance rests on its role in Navy shipbuilding and repair, on the Naval Aircraft Factory, which built flying boats during the First World War, and on the Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory, a propulsion research center. It was also home to the Marine Corps Reservation, which included barracks and Georgian Revival officers' quarters. The district includes buildings in Beaux Arts, Renaissance Revival, Italianate and Second Empire styles, and its period of significance ends in 1945. The Navy yard closed in 1995.