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From the outside, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is crumbling and streaked with rust. Yet inside the buildings, it does not take much imagination to realize the Navy Yard once was a major hub of industry -- a vast workshop where machinists and boiler makers built parts for navy ships through much of the 20th century.

One large workspace that was completed in 1899 and hasn't been used in 40 years will soon be renovated and readapted for a new era as a green manufacturing center.

"We're going to reuse the steel and the structure, put a new roof on, new siding and target it toward green manufacturing, one of the growing industrial centers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard," says Brooklyn Navy Yard President Andrew Kimball.

The 121-year-old Paymaster Building, where members of the U.S. Navy got their checks on payday, is now being renovated for office space.

At the landmark Dry Dock One, repairs are still being done on boats. Complete with granite steps, the dry dock dates back to the 1840s.

All of this history will be on public display at Building 92, the future site of an exhibition center, housed in a structure designed in 1857 by the architect of the U.S. Capitol building.

"It'll have an exhibit that will celebrate the Navy Yard's rich history, the role of the Navy around the world, the evolution of manufacturing technology, any inventions that went on at the Navy Yard," says Kimball.

The Sands Street gate to the Navy Yard will a new entranceway reminiscent of old. The new designs evoke the past but the roadway will be wider to accommodate today's trucks.

The Naval Hospital, an 1838 landmark marble structure, and the chief surgeon's 1846 Victorian home are going to be made into part of an entertainment complex.

"The Brooklyn Navy Yard," a book released this year by John Bartelstone, a local photographer, captures current images of the Navy Yard.

"You can pick up a book about the Navy Yard with pictures taken 100 years ago and see a lot of the same things," says Bartelstone. "I'd like people to understand this is an industrial element of New York that has some permanence."

There will be some permanence but not all. The Navy Yard will save just two structures along Admiral's Row -- a home and timber shed -- and demolish the rest, which are falling apart. In their place, a neighborhood supermarket and new retail and industrial space will be built.