By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The area between Erie Basin and Columbia Street was home to a makeshift shantytown community known as Tin City, made up largely of unemployed and under-employed maritime workers in the 1920s and 30s. In the winter of 1932, the Brooklyn Eagle...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Aniello (Henry) D’Auria began working as a welder's helper at Todd's Shipyard in 1933-34. Learning on the job he became a skilled welder. D'Auria describes the working conditions in shipyards as poor, noisy and noxious....
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Brooklyn Life , a magazine lagely focused on the activities of Brooklyn's upper crust, described where and how many Italians were living in Brooklyn in 1903. ...New York has more Italian residents than the entire population of...
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...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Francesco Pietanza, an immigrant from Italy, became a longshoreman in Red Hook in 1948. His daughter Mary Ann remembers both his hard work and his passion for gardening.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Two views of the (R.C.) Church of the Visitation. T he parish of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded in 1854 under the leadership of Bishop John Loughlin. According to the parish's website their first church, built in...
Street address: Richards Street & Visitation Place, Brooklyn, NY
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
" We have mostly men here - very few women. No unattached women permitted at the bar. That’s a simple way of preventing trouble." One of the best known watering holes in Red Hook was the Shaft Alley saloon. Fortune magazine, in a 1937 essay...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Photo of three mustachioed Italian dock workers reported to be taken at Pier 30, Red Hook, Brooklyn on November 6, 1918. (photographer unknow to us)
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A shopping tour in Italian Red Hook included all types of food: snails, fresh vegetables, rabbit, squab, octopus, cheese, olive oil, beans, and garlic. Throughout the 1900s , Red Hook had a very large Italian population, many of whom earned their...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Don't be put off by a long line, their large and speedy staff cranks out sandwiches fast! This long-time family business slings huge portions to make great Italian hero sandwiches and has its own Red Hook WaterStories. Defonte's Sandwich...
