Welcome to 400+ years of Red Hook! Inclusion is a theme in this e-museum that memorializes forgotten, overlooked and erased histories. It’s a resource for locals, tourists, history buffs, urban-planners, educators, students, flaneurs. It tells NYC’s maritime story in microcosm. Explore:
- our waterfront past & present
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contemporary Red Hook retail, arts, non-profits, schools, recreation, transit
- flood prep & resiliency info
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Featured Item
Alf Dyrland, Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN, 1962-1978
Alf Dyrland was Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN from her rechristening in 1962 until 1978 when he retired. He was her first captain; she was his last boat.
Alf loved the MARY deeply. As he lay dying in…Index of Items
Telegram, February 12, 1946 to Alf Dyrland declaring the Government takeover of the marine transportation and towing companies in the New York Harbor area and directing strikers to…
Brooklyn Spar Company, 1921
In 1921, the Brooklyn Spar Company advertised in The Marine Journal that it sold wooden masts and posts for derricks and flag poles, which the company made at its waterfront facility at the foot of…
RMC Canvas and Rope
The staff of RMC Canvas and Rope, posing by their hand-made rope fender. This Red Hook company ended its long run serving the maritime industry in 2005.
Random Items
Cowhey Marine Hardware, c. 1862 - 2006
Cowhey Marine Hardware operated in Red Hook for about 150 years. The rump remains of the business was at 440 Van Brunt Street, the northwest corner of Van Brunt and Beard Street, and closed in 2005.…
Title Fight: Louis Heineman vs. William Beard
No man ever, perhaps, got so much the best of old Beard as did Louis Heineman, the housemover of the Twelfth ward”
(The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1891)When Louis Heineman died in 1904, he was reportedly 104 years old, and likely the oldest man in Red Hook if not all of Brooklyn. According to accounts written around the time of his death he came to…
A Quarantine War
The concept of quarantine has been around for a long time. As early as A.D. 549, the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the isolation of people traveling from places ridden with the bubonic plague.…Full text of the article from theNew York Herald, June 12, 1870
QUARANTINE WARDr. Cochrane Defending the Brooklyn Merchants --- Who Rules the Roost? --- Exciting Scenes Along the…
Red Hook Building Company, 1838
The Red Hook Building Company was the brainchild of Col. Daniel Richards, a man who grew up in upstate New York. When the Erie Canal opened in 1825 and had a powerful economic effect, Richards was…Select text from the Proposal. (A pdf of the full original is linked below)
"The advantages of Brooklyn as a place of residence, as well as for commercial purposes - in view of its proximity to the…