Former Enlisted Family Housing

 apartment building, historical layer / disappeared object

Built in the 1960's to offer more housing to enlisted Coast Guardsmen and their families, this multi-story apartment building was utilized by the Coast Guard until the closure of Governers Island as a base in 1996. Remaining vacant and under consideration for a wide variety of uses for much of the next decade, the building was eventually declared unsound for habitation and slated for eventual demolition.

Seizing the opportunity to evaluate fire combat and containment tactics in a high-rise housing project style building, beginning in February 2008 FDNY staged a number of large-scale drills involving working fires in the building. At the conclusion of their tests, the smoke-blackened building was again left idle and is now slated for demolition as the Southern half of Governers Island is redeveloped as multi-use parkland.