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
-
contemporary Red Hook retail, arts, non-profits, schools, recreation, transit
- flood prep & resiliency info
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Featured Item

Ad For Atlantic Docks, 1847
Construction of The Atlantic Dock - a massive, man-made harbor for deep water ships, began on June 3, 1841. The erection of stout stone warehouses and towering grain elevators that could handle…●
Text from an Advetisement in Doggets New York City Directory for 1847
Storage for Grain, Flour, Sugar, Molasses, Cotton, ETC.,
AT THE
ATLANTIC DOCK, NEW-YORK.
FORTY ACRES WATER SURFACE WITHIN…

Captain Maude Jensen, first female licensed pilot of steam vessels in New York Harbor, 1905
"You don't know what I mean about that job out there do you? I thought not. Well, it's this way. Down here in the towing, and ice and water supply business we have a great deal of competition. No, it…The Sun, May 28, 1905THE GIRL WHO RUNS A TUGBOAT: A Day's Cruise with Capt. Maude Jensen who has Just Received a Pilot License.
Maude Jensen is the only woman who is a skipper of a tugboat in this…

A Cruise in the Erie Basin, by Don C. Seitz, 1892
A Cruise in the Erie Basin, an article by Don C. Seitz, and published in Frank Leslie's magazinesin 1892, relates the story of Red Hook's Erie Basin.
It grew from a scene with “hardly a building to…
Random Items
Welcome to Red Hook, a neighborhood with a fascinating past and dynamic present!
Red Hook WaterStories is a virtual guide to both past and present of this special neighborhood created by PortSide NewYork. We cover the past via our maritime aka "WaterStories" theme. You can search…
Eymund Diegel map: Flattening Bergen Hill for Red Hook Fill, c. 1845
Bergen Hill once stood tall in Brooklyn, before developers had it carted away for fill to make the Atlantic Docks of Red Hook. Looking at historic maps from 1775, 1837 and 2004 cartographer Eymund…
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.
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…