By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Jim Perkins recounted his experience of working on the TAMAROA, a Coast Guard cutter located in the Bushey Shipyard in Red Hook in an article published on the (now gone) website Jack's Joint, which called itself an unoffical Coast Guard Library. The...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In Ira Bushey vs. USA (1968) the US Government was held liable for the conduct of a drunken sailor. After returning to the United States, a sailor on the Coast Guard cutter TAMAROA, then docked in a floating drydock in Bushey’s shipyard, turned...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Ira S. Bushey & Sons' was a shipbuilder and oil company based in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Remarkably, the company combined three different endeavors: a shipyard, a fuel terminal, and a fleet of vessels that moved fuel. Busheys built around 200...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1920, the New York Tow Boat Exchange represented 34 independent tow boat companies. In their advertisement in the Port of New York Annual, the Exchange boasted that their fleet of 200 boats could handle anything "from the docking and shifting of...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
During Prohibition (1920 -1933), the many, bustling working piers of Red Hook made this neighborhood a good place for smugglers to move large quantities of alcohol, often using innovative speed boats to evade federal agents. On June 3, 1922, at the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Court Street, from Bryant Street to Gowanus Canal, showing in the background the Ira S. Bushey and Sons boat building plant. October 8, 1937. P. L. Sperr. Note: Ira S. Bushey was more than a shipyard. They also were a fuel terminal. The fuel tanks...
Street address: Court Street & Bryant Street, Brooklyn, NY
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Alf Dyrland was Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN from her rechristening in 1962 until 1978 when he retired. He was her first captain; she was his last boat. Alf loved the MARY deeply. As he lay dying in 1996, what he said out loud...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1955, the ESSO NEW YORK, became the first American super tanker to navigate the Gowanus Creek Channel to deliver oil to the Patchogue Oil Terminal, a subsidiary of Ira S. Bushey & Sons, at the foot of Court Street. The dredging of the channel...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The tanker MARY A. Whalen, flagship of PortSide NewYork was built for Ira S. Bushey & Sons. Ira S. Bushey started his work life driving mules on the Erie Canal in the latter half of the 19th Century. After trying various jobs, he returned...
