By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Scroll to the bottom to hear PortSide's interview with Sunny Balzano. Sunny Balzano was the beloved owner of a legendary bar, opened in 1890, which became known as Sunny’s after his uncle, who last ran it, passed. Suuny died March 10, 2016...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
" You Brooklynites who rush to Coney or Rockaway at the first blush of a hot day don't know your town so very well, " read an article in The Standard Union in 1929. " To be actually in the 'swim' you are just a nobody until you have visited...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This pair of range lights/markers help guide ships in the channel. When the two markers appear exactly on top of each other, the approaching ship is correctly lined up for approach. The rear marker stands 76 feet tall, and is the rear of a pair of...
Michael Gallagher, last General Manager of New York Shipyard, successor to Todd Shipyard, interviewed two weeks before selling the site to IKEA, talks about the shipyard, its history and final days. Gallagher represents the 5th generation of his...
John Gladsky is the definition of a colorful old salt. He is a marine salvor and the principal of Gladsky Marine and has an old-time Long Island accent. His oral history expresses nostalgia for the Todd Shipyard and criticism of public policy that...
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 is clearly proud of the ingenuity and hard work of his...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A collection of historic maps and images of Red Hook, Brooklyn
Hear Tom Teague's reflections on being a Tugboat Captain. These interviews of Captain Tom Teague and Mate Mike Dunn were done on the tugboat JANICE ANN REINAUER in Erie Basin Bargeport by Carolina Salguero c. 2000. Tom Teague: Push,...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Alcyone Boat Club was formed around 1867, the first rowing club in the area. It was located at the foot of Court and Smith Streets. "Another aquatic sport has lately become very popular in this city, though but little attempt has been made...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This 1869 map of Red Hook, reveals some of what was there at the there at the time, but also shows the Brooklyn Basin which was approved by the government but never built. Designed at the same time as Erie Basin that part of the plan was never...
