15, 1918. The city set aside $40 million for the completion of the complex. Six thousand workers, employed by Turner Construction, helped build the Brooklyn Army Base. The scope of construction was so large that an additional train was added to subway timetables to transport workers from Manhattan to the future Army Base, and prospective workers would line up outside the construction site every morning. Several smaller contractors also helped build the complex. To save money and to reduce the use of steel, the structures were built out of reinforced poured in place concrete using wooden forms. The concrete floors were designed to support loads of . The construction process used 7 million linear feet () of wood. The Brooklyn Army Terminal was the world's largest concrete building complex at the time of construction. Ultimately, the government spent $32 million on the terminal's construction. Military use The Brooklyn Army Base was completed in September 1919. The base was able to accommodate of outgoing freight per hour as well as of freight storage. As World War I had already ended, this full capacity was not used for some time. However, the Brooklyn Army Base was also designed for light industrial use so that it could be used as a civilian facility after the war ended. As such, in 1920, the federal government began advertising five-year leases for parts of the base. The complex had a combined devoted to storage, which could support loads of up to . The next year, a law passed by Congress gave the United States Shipping Board access to all piers that the Army was not using. In 1923, the federal government paid $2.4 million to the estate of William C. Langley, whose plot between 61st and 63rd Streets had been seized five years earlier to make way for the Brooklyn Army Base. The same year, the Shipping Board started leasing piers 3 and 4 to private commercial tenants. The Atlantic Tidewater Terminal signed two 5-year leases for the upper floors of the warehouses, using them for storage. Under this arrangement, transatlantic liners were able to dock at the Brooklyn Army Base's piers. Starting in 1920, during Prohibition, two vaults on warehouse A's third and sixth floors were used to stock illicit alcoholic beverages, as well as narcotics. The Army installed an incinerator in 1926 so it could destroy confiscated drinks. In 1929, after a series of