By The Red Hook WaterStories team
[Links to the video below] Ørkenen Sur. A Norwegian documentary made in 2015 about the shanty town that existed int Red Hook from the early 1920s to the mid 1930s. Known by names including Ørkenen Sur (the bitter desert), and Tin City. It was home...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Published on Dec 17, 2015 "Mange nordmenn dro til Amerika for å skaffe seg et bedre liv. For noen endte drømmen på en søppelfylling i New York." (Many Norwegians went to America to acquire a better life. A few ended the dream in a...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
On June 6th, 1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen departed from New York's Battery in an 18 foot rowboat destination Europe. Their vessel The FOX, was an 18 foot surf boat was built on the New Jersey Shore, only powered by oars. It took the two men...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
From the 1920s there existed a shanty town in Red Hook, largely populated by underemployed sailors and dockworkers. With little money or hope some took to drinking a poisonous homemade brew called smoke . In 1932, a number of smokies , those...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
GBX-Gowanus Bay Terminal is on a historic maritime site which has had several significant iterations. More on those below. GBX’s website says it is a multi-user industrial facility with an emphasis on community, environment, and sustainability."...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Seaman's handbook for Shore Leave , by United States Merchant Marine’s Social Service Bureau. Custom House, published in 1920 listed sailor’s homes – places were sailors could get a bed and sometimes a meal for a night - from...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
See the feature article on Norwegians which covers their story in Brooklyn's Red Hook from the 1600s to the modern day Topics include, the mid-nineteenth century church ship BETHELSHIP and the missions established to help Norwegian and other...
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 in the late 1910s, their ships...
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 New York Sun ...
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...
