By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In the 1990’s New York’s waterways was less grandiose, than it had been in years prior, but it still had its gems here and there. One such gem, Leonard Thomas, affectionately known as the “Chicken Man'', worked a career that spanned several...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1889, several newspapers reported on Lawrence Grob, a citizen of Red Hook who earned the nickname “Larry the Bugler'' from his neighbors. Every morning, from his residence on Conover Street, near the Atlantic Docks, Grob used his bugle to wake...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Four years before the American Civil War, a legal battle emerged from a situation that occurred aboard a steamship from Savannah to New York. One of the passengers, Thomas Steele, a light skinned man, was accused of being a fugitive slave by another...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Christopher Nicolson is the managing winemaker for the Red Hook Winery but that by itself does not provide enough for him and his family to live in Brooklyn. His main income is earned as a fisherman for the Iliamna Fish Company , a business he owns...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Daniel Lewis was a fisherman in Red Hook in 1842. He is one of five people in The Brooklyn Directory for that year whose address is given as the area of Red Hook rather than a street name.. There were more people living in Red Hook. These five were...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A cheat sheet for the bell and jingle code hangs in the fidley of the MARY A. WHALEN. It can be seen in the related entry Bells are Direction, Jingles are Speed which lays out the system. The bell and jingle code was used by the captain...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Rich Naruszewicz was interviewed by PortSide NewYork's Jenny Kane in 2014. Scroll down to bottom of the page for audio recording Synopsis of Interview (times are approximate, text is not word-for-word but provides a gist of the audio recording) I...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Synopsis of interview with Heidi Benedikt, former crew member of the MARY A. WHALEN. Recording times in parenthesis are aproximate. Go to bottom of the page to hear the full interview (0:10) The delegate of the union convinced me...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Gary Shiflett, currently a fleet manager, used to work for Ira S. Bushey and Sons and Eklof Marine. In 2016, while standing in the galley of PortSide NewYork's MARY A. WHALEN - a "Bushey boat" - he told of some of his memories...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Captain Nels Helgesen during his long career which began in 1918, commanded every ship of the New York and Porto Rico Steamship Line. The home port of the steamship line was in Red Hook's Atlantic Basin. Starting around the 1920s their ships...
