By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Spanish Freighter NAVEMAR left from Seville. Spain, with 1,120 passengers, in 1941. Most were Jewish refugees fleeing genocide in German-occupied countries. The conditions on the NAVEMAR, a ship designed with only 28 accommodations, were...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Seaman's handbook for Shore Leave , by United States Merchant Marine’s Social Service Bureau. Custom House, published in 1920 listed sailor’s homes – places were sailors could get a bed and sometimes a meal for a night - from...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1866, two men and a dog from Red Hook, set sail in a metal life-boat rigged like a sailing ship. Captain Hudson and Mr. Fitch were out to prove the seaworthiness of the lifeboat , RED WHITE AND BLUE, designed by Brooklyn's Oliver Roland...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Updates on the building and the efforts to save it or raze it: June 14, 2018, a fire occurred in historic S. W. Bowne warehouse. FDNY concluded that the fire was arson and "the investigation is still open” (as in "who did it"?) Demo Permit...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Bonded warehouse are places were foreign imports can be stored or manipulated without the payment of duty or taxes. The government only gets a piece of the action (duty) if and when the goods are sold domestically. Under the watchful eyes...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In the 1870s grain made up a bulk of the imports to Red Hook's piers but a wide variety of other goods from around the world were arriving and being stored at its ports. Major's Storage Guide (1873) published "Rates of Storage and Labor on...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Aniello (Henry) D’Auria began working as a welder's helper at Todd's Shipyard in 1933-34. Learning on the job he became a skilled welder. D'Auria describes the working conditions in shipyards as poor, noisy and noxious....
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Mariners and those in the shipbuilding trades demanded higher wages and better benefits, in the years following WWII. In 1947, thousands who worked at the Todd Shipyard in Red Hook, Brooklyn went on strike. They were not alone. 67,000 workers,...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The MARY A WHALEN is a rare surviving example of a bell boat. On a bell boat, the person steering (the captain or the mate) has no direct control over the speed of the engine, nor whether the ship goes forward or in reverse. The engineer, as the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Phil Rizutto worked at Bushey's in the 1970s. "The opening photo of Busheys Shipyard brings back great memories for me since I worked there from 72 till we closed the yard down selling everything of value at auction. My family became close with Ira...
