By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Ever wonder what's going on behind the containerport fence? This article explains how the place works. Red Hook gets one of its signature icons – gantry cranes at sunset – from the neighborhood’s largest maritime facility, the Red Hook...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A walk around Red Hook starting at PortSide New York's MARY A. WHALEN, in Atlantic Basin, meandering to Red Hook's NYCHA houses and then ending up at the restaurants of Van Brunt Street. This is the start of a feature article. To see the full essay...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
YES, post hurricane Sandy, Red Hook has been, and still is being, intensely studied by the city, state and federal government; and it is being studied by many academic projects as well. Here is a quick overview of multiple government-funded plans...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Red Hook once had two graving docks and many floating dry docks. This wonderfully illustrated article from the January 13, 1883 edition of Scientific American explains how graving docks at what became Todd Shipyard work. The shipyard site is now...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Don Horton worked with his family on barges from the age of 10 to 18. This meant that during WWII, his family was part of the merchant marines, doing dangerous work since German U-boats were attacking American commercial vessels trading along our...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The tanker MARY A. Whalen, homeship of PortSide NewYork was built for Ira S. Bushey. Ira S. Bushey started his work life driving mules on the Erie Canal in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. After trying various jobs he returned to the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Norwegians, being master mariners, arrived in New Amsterdam on ships in the early 1600s. In the 1820s and 30s, they began emigrating in groups and rapidly established a "Koloni" in Red Hook. They were ministered by a floating church, then a church...
Named for its ruddy colored soil, Red Hook was once a verdant wetlands etched by a branching network of tidal creeks. The Dutch who settled in Red Hook in the 17th century applied their knowledge of aquatic technology to the marshy landscape and...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Blacks were one of the first groups to arrive in Brooklyn during the Dutch colonial period, usually as slaves, though there were also freemen. To provide an overview of some early Black history, PortSide commissioned this article by Charles Foy...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Shantytowns are a feature of 19th century Brooklyn and New York City. They were the low-income housing of the day, often for newly arrived immigrants. In Red Hook, the presence of shantytowns is directly related to the waterfront (eg, low-lying,...
