The Farragut Houses are located in what used to be a heavily industrial area, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

[7] The first residents started moving in that year; the average rent was between $33.50–$44 a month, including utilities.

Restaurants, illegal drinking establishments, tattoo parlors and brothels were packed with people who worked or commuted along the waterfront.

These also teach youth to consider law enforcement as a career goal and instilling a sense of morals.

The Farragut Houses are separated from the rest of Brooklyn by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, making the area relatively hard to access from the south.

[16] The poverty-stricken area stands in sharp contrast to nearby blocks in Dumbo and Vinegar Hill, where the median income is $148,611, rents average around $3,000 a month, and apartments can sell for over one million dollars.

[16] Eighty-eight percent of public school students in the area live below the poverty line, and crime in the Farragut Houses is significantly higher than in Dumbo and Vinegar Hill.

Options include a Chinese restaurant, some bodegas, and a "small grocery store with a single aisle of produce."

[18][19] From 2008 until 2015, the housing project did not have a laundry room in any of the buildings, so residents had to walk at least 1 mile (1.6 km) to go to one of two laundromats along Myrtle Avenue.

[29][30] The first elevated railway, the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line, came to downtown Brooklyn in 1885 and ran only a few blocks away.

September 2015[update], the NYC Department of Education proposed a rezoning of the area, which was controversial among residents in adjacent, more affluent Vinegar Hill.

[50] The New York City water system is managed by the Department of Environmental Protection and consists of three upstate aqueducts—the Croton, Catskill, and Delaware aqueducts—the latter two of which flow through Brooklyn.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection regulates Farragut Houses' water system and its pipes.

NYCHA's job is to create public housing for low income families while also giving them free maintenance, cleaning and heating.

Residents of the Farragut Houses have made a large number of complaints and maintenance repair requests, especially during winter.

For instance, on August 16, 2013, the Farragut Houses had 4,034 unanswered repair requests, with complaints ranging from difficulties closing doors to mold growing in bathrooms.

[52] In response, Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled proposals to fix these problems.

The 2,500-square-foot (230 m2) garden includes more than ten raised beds for growing vegetables, a rainwater harvesting system, shed, and seating.