By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Rich Naruszewitz was interviewed by PortSide NewYork's Jenny Kane in 2014. Synopsis of Interview (times are approximate, text is not word-for-word but provides a gist of the audio recording - at bottom of page) I work in NY Harbor — will be my...
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 to go work...
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 of working on...
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...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
When the Steamer Uranium, from Rotterdam, via Halifax docked at Atlantic Basin's Pier 38 in Red Hook, all the talk was about love. Love was what people were talking about when the Steamer Uranium docked at Pier 38, Atlantic Basin, Red Hook, in...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Month after month a three-mastered schooner was seen anchored off-shore in the Red Hook Flats. On board was just one man who never went ashore. How he got by was a mystery to the few folk who knew of his existence. He was not hiding; he had...
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...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Col. Daniel Richards was a visionary developer who set Red Hook on the path to becoming one of the world's major commercial ports. Inspired by the powerful economic effects resulting from the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Richards moved from...
Interviewed in 2013 at age 19, Rasheed Johnson, a resident of NYCHA’s Red Hook houses, talks about how the neighborhood has changed in the past 8 years since he got here. Development has eliminated all his “hang out spots” except for Valentino...
Richard Gambino, a retired professor, grew up in Red Hook in the 1950s. Interviewed by oral historian Shannon Geis in 2013, he recalls it as a close-knit Italian immigrant commumity. He talks of the customs and traditons of the waterfront...
