The Department of War ultimately declined to endorse the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge. In May 1939 Robert Woodring, the United States Secretary of War, blocked the construction of the bridge due to concerns over the span's potential to become a naval obstruction during a war, since the Brooklyn Navy Yard was located shoreward of the proposed bridge. In response, Moses submitted a revised plan for the bridge and asked the Department of War to reconsider. Moses and Brooklyn politicians declared that they would not accept anything other than an endorsement of the second plan. However, in July, the War Department also rejected the second plan, since the new plan would also pose a wartime hazard. Advocates for the bridge called the rejection a "setback to business". They also discounted the decision as hypocritical since numerous other bridges (including the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge, which stood between the proposed bridge and the Navy Yard) would also constitute wartime hazards by the Army's reasoning.