Explore the Navy Yard

Key sites in the Navy Yard trace the working life of USS Constitution and the yard itself. Building 10 opened in 1853 as the Pitch House and Oakum Loft, where pine tree sap was boiled into tar and pitch to keep wooden ships watertight, and it later served as a paint shop, radio station, laundry, sonar repair shop, the first home of the USS Constitution Museum in 1974, and now a counter-service restaurant. Building 22, the Pump House and now home of the USS Constitution Museum, once contained giant steam pumps used to drain Dry Dock 1 when USS Constitution first entered for repairs in 1833, and remnants of the old cisterns remain beneath the lobby. In Building 24, opened in 1849 as the Joiners Shop, Carpenters Work Shop, and Rigging Loft, shipwrights and riggers still assemble intricate rigging and shape large timbers for repairs. The Commandant's House, the oldest building in the Navy Yard, became home in the summer of 1805 to USS Constitution's first captain, Samuel Nicholson, when he became the yard's first commandant. Two massive portal cranes on railroad tracks are the last survivors of 13 moveable cranes first installed in 1905 and used during 20th-century USS Constitution renovations, including removing and installing her masts. Dry Dock 1 opened in 1833 with USS Constitution as its first occupant, remains operable after several enlargements, and has continued to serve USS Constitution and USS Cassin Young, including repairs from 2015 to 2017. From Pier 1, the site of Hartt's Shipyard across the harbor marks the birthplace of USS Constitution, built and launched in Boston's North End in the 1790s and now occupied by U.S. Coast Guard Base Boston.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States