Welcome to 400+ years of Red Hook history! Here are many forgotten stories from our evocative neighborhood, and NYC’s maritime story in microcosm. Explore:
- A digital museum about our waterfront past and present
- Red Hook retail, arts, non-profits, schools, recreation
- Resiliency and flood prep info
It’s a resource for locals, tourists, history buffs, urban-planners, educators, investors, flaneurs. Explore via menus, the search window or the interactive map. On the map, click the colored, numbered dots to zoom in to multiple items in that location. Then click on a pin to explore that item. Anchor icons mean sites of major importance.
Click empty spot on map to activate it
Featured Item
Resiliency: Flood Prep Info for Red Hook
By Carolina Salguero, Special to Red Hook WaterStories
Hurricane Sandy was a destructive example of Red Hook WaterStories. This section “resiliency: flood prep” is an effort to help Red Hook…
Oral History: Hank Dam, recollections of WWII work at Todd Shipyard. 2005
When interviewed at a vigorous 82 years of age, Hank Dam laughs hard remembering the WWII slogan of Todd Shipyard “the difficult we do every day, the impossible takes a little longer.”
Hank…
NYCHA information - Management Offices, Residents Associations, Sandy recovery & resiliency plans
The NYCHA public housing in Red Hook is the largest NYCHA development in Brooklyn, and the second largest in New York City. It is where the overwhelming majority of Red Hook residents live. The NYCHA…
Random Items
Public Baths, Foot of Conover
Beginning at the end of the 1800s, New York City docked floating pools, known as baths, along the Brooklyn water front to provide relief from the summer heat. Bath No. 4 was docked at the foot of…
How the Hamilton Avenue Ferry got started, 1846
The Hamilton Avenue Ferry was established in 1846. It was run by the Union Ferry Company, who also ran the Fulton Ferry at that time. A major destination was a new upmarket cemetery. The ferry…
Erie Basin: The Photography of Jenny Young Chandler, 1890-1915
Newly married and recently widowed in 1890, Jennie Chandler Young began working as a photojournalist to support herself and her two-month old son. Using the moniker "Brooklyn Girl," she worked until…
Red Hook Pool and Henry Street Basin before being partially filled in. 1937
Bay Street (in center of view), between Henry (left) and Clinton Streets (right), showing the Red Hook Play Center as seen from the grain elevator at the foot of Columbia Street.
The portion of…