Jim Perkins recounts his experience of working on the TAMAROA, a Coast Guard cutter located in the Bushey Shipyard in Red Hook. " The TAMAROA was located at Bushey Shipyard in Brooklyn, in the nicer part of the wrong side of town. What a Godforsaken...
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
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 1958 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
Ira S. Bushey started his work life driving mules on the Erie Canal in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. By 1895 Bushey began repairing boats, settling up shop in Brooklyn in 1905. His shipyard was located at the foot of Court Street, on...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Starting out as a caulker of wooden ships, Ira S. Bushey, by dint of hard work, was the owner of the biggest wooden ship construction yard in the country 1920 - located in Red Hook's Erie Basin. Ira S. Bushey was the first builder and operator of an...
