The Navy Yard expansion stimulated the development over time of residences and businesses in South Philadelphia, where many shipyard workers lived.

The yard has its origins in a commercial shipyard founded in 1776 on Philadelphia's Front Street on the Delaware River; it was designated an official United States Navy site in 1801.

This was the first shipyard in the world to use floating dry docks in the building process to improve an operating time of the ships.

[3] After the advent of ironclad warships made the site obsolete, new facilities were built in 1871 on League Island at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.

[5] In the summer of 1835 Philadelphia Navy Yard shipwrights, joiners and other workers led the effort to reduce the workday by combining the direct action of a strike, with political pressure to the executive branch.

After first seeking workday reduction by a request to the Secretary of the Navy via shipyard Commandant Commodore James Barron, on 29 August 1835 they appealed directly to President Andrew Jackson.

Commodore Barron endorsed his workers' request with the following acknowledgment "I would respectfully observe – Seems to be inevitable, sooner or later, for as the working man are seconded by all the Master workmen, city councils etc.

On 29 August 1836, a committee of Philadelphia Navy Yard mechanics appealed to President Andrew Jackson to extend the law, "The Committee are sure that if the example is set in Philadelphia it will be [illegible] required in other places and they will not attempt to disguise the pleasure it would give them as Citizens and as Workingmen to see a reformation taking place under the auspices of the Government.

"[7]It was five years before the ten-hour day was extended to all government employees engaged in manual labor; this was accomplished via an executive order by President Martin Van Buren on 31 March 1840.

[citation needed] The shipyard's greatest period came in World War II, when the yard employed 40,000 people who built 53 ships and repaired 574.

In the Naval Laboratory, Philip Abelson developed the liquid thermal diffusion technique for separating uranium-235 for the Manhattan Project.

The city and state struggled to keep the facility operational, and the planned closing was unsuccessfully litigated to the US Supreme Court in Dalton v. Specter.

Since its transfer from the government to the City of Philadelphia, the west end of property has been leased to Aker Kværner, a tanker and commercial shipbuilding firm.

Other occupants include Rittenhouse Ventures, Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, Rhoads Industries Inc. in Navy Building 57,[23] Energy Efficient Buildings Hub (EEB Hub), RevZilla.com, and Mark Group, Inc.[citation needed] In January 2013, PIDC announced its intention to increase the number of apartments on site for employees (near 1,000) and additional infrastructure development.