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
Explore via menus, the search window, or interactive map. On the map, click the colored, numbered dots to expand multiple items in that location. Then, click on a pin to explore that item. Anchor icons mean sites of major importance.More about this site
Click empty spot on map to activate it
Featured Item
Deck work doesn't wait for weather.
Photograph of an able-bodied seaman working in snow flurries at Ira S. Bushey and Sons' old shipyard. The end of the line he is working on has been folded back and braided into itself to form a loop.…
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…
Winter Life on Canal Boats, 1915
Near Christmas time, 1915, a female reporter and an illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, visited a few of the many canal boats and barges moored for the winter in Erie Basin “in search of a story…Full article text:Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 26, 1915
WINTER LIFE ON CANAL BOATSResidents of Erie Basin Celebrate the Holidays in Much the Same Fashion as Folk Ashore.
GUESSING the right house…
Random Items
Colonies of Cozy Canal Boats Cluster for Winter In Quiet, Land-Locked Havens of Brooklyn Basins, 1911
This article from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday, March 12, 1911, recounts the winter-time lives of Erie Canal barge families who winter in Erie Basin.
Colonies of Cozy Canal Boats Cluster for Winter
City of Inland Navigators Prepares for Annual Exodus.
COMMUNITY BOASTS OF UNIQUE FEATURES
Children Enjoy Sports on Docks After School Hours.
With the…
Flattening Bergen Hill for Red Hook Fill
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…
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.…
RMC Canvas and Rope
The staff of RMC Canvas and Rope, posing by their hand-made rope fender. The Red Hook company ended its long run serving the maritime businesses in 2005.