Former Prison Cells in Brooklyn Flipped Into $2 Million Townhouses

A model townhouse at 17 Clermont Avenue. Photos courtesy of Navy Green

One of the most fascinating buildings in Brooklyn history has reached the tail end of its luxury transformation.

The massive Navy Green development on the upper edge of Fort Greene, which replaces a notorious old harbor-side prison called the Brig, already debuted three of its four towers of “affordable” condos in the past couple years. (The fourth tower is currently accepting applications. FYI, one-bedrooms start at $230,000.)

And now, Navy Green’s crown jewels — 23 exclusive, three-story townhouses, arranged in two parallel rows — are starting to hit the market.

The roll-out begins with the row of 10 townhouses along Clermont Avenue.

“Imagine a backyard barbecue, the smoke rising from the grill across a broad evening sky unimpeded by skyscrapers; a summer dinner party on the patio, or coffee on your private terrace as you take in the view of the lush central green lawn,” says the listing.

The Clermont Avenue townhouses come in two models: a three-bedroom for $1.9 million and a four-bedroom for $2.1 million. Both models reportedly include a lush backyard, a media room, a laundry room, European oak flooring and video intercom stations on all floors.

But despite the steep asking price, prospective buyers shouldn’t be surprised to find ghosts of prison cells and pirate ships past stalking the halls.

That’s because, beginning in the 1940s, this 104,600-square-foot property served as a federal prison for wayward marines, according to city historians. Then, when the Navy Yard was shut down in the 1960s, the Brig was re-purposed as a detention center for immigrants — and later, as a city prison tasked with relieving overflow from Rikers Island.

The prison was shut down from 1994 forward, save for a brief stint as temporary housing for 9/11 cleanup volunteers.

Finally, in 2005, the old walls of the Brig were razed for good — clearing the way for what would become the luxurious Navy Green.

From a New York Times story printed in 2005:

For 11 years, the spooky old jail has been empty. Its barbed wire has rusted. Its cellblocks were lighted at night to keep trespassers at bay. Of the neighbors who noticed, most were pleased that last week, preparatory work for its demolition had quietly begun.

Still, the song of the Navy brig is sung by the few who remember its past, which began in 1941, when the number of sailors ballooned and new barracks and a recruiting center were built on Flushing Avenue outside the Navy Yard. During and after World War II, the building was used as a Navy prison, and busy it was.

The sailors were wild and woolly fellows who built and fixed ships in the yard by day and drank in the saloons on Myrtle Avenue by night. Ed Carter, a longtime resident and retired social worker, remembers how sailors from the South made Brooklyn youngsters laugh with their twangy hollers of “howdy” and invited them to parties and dances.

“When the guys got drunk and fought in the bars, the military police would come and throw them in the brig,” Mr. Carter said. More than a place for real criminals, it was a place where the whiskey-soaked slept it off until the morning.

And that’s the story of how a glorified old drunk tank for swashbucklers was flipped into a glittering set of nouveau Brooklyn townhouses.