All was not peaceful on the new Hamilton Avenue Ferry. People, particularly in the evening, were sprawling out across the benches, and extra deckhands were hired to keep the order. One of the directors suggested adding dividing armrests, but the...
Growing land, Squatter Sovereigns and Picking Profit: 1887
A fair portion of today’s Red Hook was once water. An 1887 article in the Brookyn Eagle marvels that Henry and neighboring streets have been extended nearly half a mile in ten years. Marshes with knee-high water, or deeper, were being...
Red Hook Shipping company
One behind the other neatly arranged. 300 different vehicles were being loaded onto a ship. The company Red Hook Shipping has been doing this process for years. Therefore, one can assume it is second nature to them. Louis, the owner of this company,...
Mrs. "Commodore Hamilton": canal boat owner, 1890
In 1890, Mrs. A. M. Hamilton, a widow, was interviewed in Atlantic Basin, and celebrated by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as being equal to any man running a canal boat. Beginning in the mid-1820s, canal boats brought produce from the nation's...
Olives to Erie Basin, The Spanish Ybarra Line, 1922
The Ybarra Line began shipping olives, olive oil and other products from Spain to the United States at the beginning of the World War One. They became the preferred line for the shipping of olives by establishing a facility in Erie Basin “for...
Atlantic Basin Iron Works, advertisement 1927
The Atlantic Basin Iron Works office and large work shops were located at Imlay, Summit, Van Brunt, and Bowne Streets. They did all sorts of repairs a ship might need including steamship and diesel motors. The main entry for the Atlantic Basin Iron...
Red Hook Kittens relocate to Saltsjobeden, 1932
From the 1920s there existed a shanty town in Red Hook, largely populated by underemployed sailors and dockworkers. With little money or hope some took to drinking a poisonous homemade brew called smoke . In 1932, a number of...
How tide and wind affect flooding in Red Hook
Tide + surge + wind over water (fetch) = what you need to know. Tide Table locations: Gowanus Bay (the water south of Red Hook), The Battery in Manhattan is about a 20 minute difference from Atlantic Basin To calculate the risk of flooding at a...
Flood prep images
King's bird's-eye view of Brooklyn, 1905
This is a cropped portion of an aerial rendering of Brooklyn produced in 1905, from King's Views of New York . The text at the the bottom of the page reads: Busiest shipping-district in the world; N. Y. Dock Co., Atlantic Basin (40 acres), Erie...