By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Hundreds of canal boats traveled down the Erie Canal bringing grain and other produce to Red Hook's Erie Basin during the early years of the 1900s. Each canal boat was both storage and a proper home for not just the skipper but a family. ...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Thousands of Red Hook youth in 1952 experienced being on the water thanks to a summertime excursion that took them up the river and out of the hot city for a day in the country. On August 26, 2500 kids loaded on to a boat docked at the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
May 30 1868, was the first Decoration Day, a day to remember the many soldiers who died in the American Civil War by decorating their graves with flowers. It officially became a national holiday called Memorial Day in 1971. Particularly, in periods...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
All day and into the night Captain Benn made his rounds of Brooklyn's piers supplying newly arrived vessels with something that he said could keep sailors sane and captains ethical: reading material. Benn had been spreading words for 11 years by...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Excursion barges “bedecked with flags, bunting and streamers” are boarded by crowds, often numbering in the thousands, on that portion of the outside north pier at Atlantic Basin which is closest to Hamilton Ferry “The sight is a most pleasing...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Soccer off the boats in Redhook... circa late '50s? See that orange arrow? See that field across the street from the pool? Anyone remember foreign crews coming off ships moored nearby (end of Columbia Street?) and them playing SOCCER in that field?...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Red Hook Ball Fields 155 Bay Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 718 722 3211 M-F 6am-8pm Sat 6am 4pm Sun closed The Red Hook ball fields are part of the 58 acre Red Hook Recreation Center. The fields host leagues and teams; currently 4 of the 9 fields are...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Valentino Park and Pier Between Coffey and Van Dyke Streets on Ferris St Brooklyn, NY 11231 From the NYC Parks website: "Valentino Pier was once the site of an active shipping industry. In the 1600s, the Red Hook district was settled by the Dutch....
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Coffey Park, like a lot of other city properties, such as other parks, school and housing sites, started off as less desired marshy land, prone to flooding. Over the years the place was used as a skating pond in the winter and as a dump for...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team