By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Matt Kraushar, dubbed “Medical Matt,” set up a Red Hook Sandy recovery medical team. He was a medical student living on Van Brunt Street when Sandy hit. He learned from Katrina that medical issues that were managed under normal conditions...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Local 1814, International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO commemorated their 20 th anniversary in 1974 with a publication celebrating their accomplishments and with a positive outlook for the future. Higher wages, job security, health...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This image is not an actual photograph but a rendering created by the DALL-E AI system following the instructions given to it by Jefe (a real person). He requested that it create: "Boats leaving the dock in Red Hook Brooklyn, at sunrise in...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
From the mid-1800s, lots of kinds of cargo were carried by canal boats from the U.S. inland to Red Hook to be shipped out around the world or to be used in local manufacturing. Grain was one of the largest imports, but some canal boats regularly...
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 corrupt 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...