Grumman - Long Island Location

Long Island Location

For much of the Cold War period Grumman was the largest corporate employer on Long Island. Grumman's products were considered so reliable and ruggedly built that the company was often referred to as the "Grumman Iron Works".

As the company grew, it moved to Valley Stream, New York, then Farmingdale, New York, finally to Bethpage, New York, with the testing and final assembly at the 6,000-acre (24 km2) Naval Weapons Station in Calverton, New York, all located on Long Island. At its peak in 1986 it employed 23,000 people on Long Island and occupied 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m2) in structures on 105 acres (0.42 km2) it leased from the U.S. Navy in Bethpage.

The end of the Cold War, at the beginning of the 1990s, the reduced need for defense spending led to a wave of mergers as aerospace companies shrank in number; in 1994 Northrop bought Grumman for $2.1 billion to form Northrop Grumman, after Northrop topped a $1.9 billion offer from Martin Marietta.

The new company closed almost all of its facilities on Long Island with the Bethpage plant being converted to a residential and office complex (with its headquarters at 1111 Stewart Avenue becoming the corporate headquarters for Cablevision) and the Calverton plant being turned into an airport that is being developed by Riverhead, New York. A portion of the airport property has been used for the Grumman Memorial Park. Northrop Grumman's remaining business at the Bethpage campus is the Battle Management and Engagement Systems Division, which employs around 2,000 people.