By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Pietro "Pete" Panto was an Italian American longshoreman and union activist who was murdered by the mob for speaking out and organizing against currupt union leadership. The Red Hook WaterStories team has not written an entry about him yet but...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Be it today or 100+ years ago, some people, especially landlubbers, find it difficult to make their way to a particular ship or pier. Would that be deemed newsworthy today? Possibly not, but the following anecdote appeared in 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
" A modern port is made up of many things, one of the most important besides the fact that a good port must be a good natural harbor for ships, is the vast array of manmade contrivances for the physical handling of...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The names of things on ships are different than buildings on land. Here are some key words using PortSide New York's MARY A WHALEN as the example. Ship parts: beam: width of the boat bow: front end bulkhead : wall bunk: bed cabin:...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
"You don't know what I mean about that job out there do you? I thought not. Well, it's this way. Down here in the towing, and ice and water supply business we have a great deal of competition. No, it is not friendly competition, I might almost say...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Red Hook's Public School 30 was built in 1868. P.S. 30 was located on the east side of Conover Street between Wolcott and Sullivan Streets. By 1930 a modern addition was built just to the east of the original building. P.S. 30 was in bad...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This image of the Grace Lines warehouse in Atlantic Basin comes from a scrap book (1924-1925 page 28) in the collection of the Seaman's Church Institute. In the background of the photo to the left of the Grace Lines warehouse Governors Island with...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Huge waves crashing down on the deck as hail, steamers burning through their coal just to stay in place against the wind, ships being thrashed by the storm and everything, and everyone, frozen and encrusted in ice. These are the stories that the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Docked at the German-American pier, at the foot of Ferris Street, in May of 1897 was the clipper ship Belfast - known as a ghost craft in the British Merchant Marine. The World newspaper reported that: "Seamen Burke and...
