Named for its ruddy colored soil, Red Hook was once a verdant wetlands etched by a branching network of tidal creeks. The Dutch who settled in Red Hook in the 17th century applied their knowledge of aquatic technology to the marshy landscape and...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Blacks were one of the first groups to arrive in Brooklyn during the Dutch colonial period, usually as slaves, though there were also freemen. To provide an overview of some early Black history, PortSide commissioned this article by Charles Foy...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This is an intro to the people story of Red Hook, to the parade of ethnic groups that lived and/or worked here roughly in the order of their arrival. Native American Lenape people enjoy Red Hook as a summer place from the 16th century. Dutch...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
How Red Hook's topography evolves from Native American summer camp to Dutch mill ponds with oyster beds, then ports, warehouses and finally a street grid. Did you know that the 1840s development of Atlantic Dock jumpstarts a 100-year development...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Near Christmas time, 1915, a female reporter and an illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, visited a few of the many canal boats and barges moored for the winter in Erie Basin “in search of a story about holiday preparations and winter life.”...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
RoodGallery 373 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn, NY 347-468-0735 contact info: samar@roodgallery.com http://www.roodgallery.com Exhibition hours:Thurs--Sun 12pm--5pm or by appointment From their website: "Mision is to increase social resilience by...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In the 1870s grain made up a bulk of the imports to Red Hook's piers but a wide variety of other goods from around the world were arriving and being stored at its ports. Major's Storage Guide (1873) published "Rates of Storage and Labor on...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Valentino Park and Pier Between Coffey and Van Dyke Streets on Ferris St Brooklyn, NY 11231 From the NYC Parks website: "Valentino Pier was once the site of an active shipping industry. In the 1600s, the Red Hook district was settled by the Dutch....
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Erie Basin, at one time dubbed “The busiest place in the Port of New York” is a large man-made protected harbor near the southern point of Red Hook. Its U-shaped breakwater, well over one-half mile long, encloses a large area of water. The basin...
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...
