Adjunct Professor Lawrence Brennan was featured in a New York Times article about New York Nautical, a global provider of nautical charts in TriBeCa that has been around for almost a century.
Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain, and his daughter, Mary Kate Brennan, hunched over a table as the duo — both maritime lawyers — scoured a chart of Tokyo Bay in Japan, days after a container ship had collided with the U.S.S. Fitzgerald, a Navy warship, in June.
Mr. Brennan was charting the ships’ courses. “I want to know what rocks, wrecks or other hazards might be there,” he said.
He had traveled that morning from his home in Metuchen, N.J., to New York Nautical, a store in TriBeCa that’s been around for almost 100 years, to examine the $44 chart. If a legal battle over the wreck were to take place and his services were needed, he said, he wanted to be prepared.
“This is the epicenter for charts and navigation on the East Coast, if not the entire United States,” said Mr. Brennan, who teaches admiralty law at Fordham Law School. “When it comes to charts, this is the holiest of holies.”
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Mr. Brennan first visited New York Nautical, when it was located at 40 Water Street, in 1963, when he was a 10-year-old naval history buff. The shop relocated twice more before docking at 200 Church Street in 2014, but it already needs a new address. “Rent is a problem,” said James Smith, known as Smitty, who has run the shop for 37 years.