Captain Tom Smith was interviewed over lunch in the galley of the MARY A. WHALEN in 2016.   For part of his long career, he worked for the same company that owned The MARY, then a working oil tanker, now the flagship of PortSide NewYork....

In 2017, the inauguration of the NYC Ferry service was a big deal in the mind of Oscar Pagan , enough so that he drove from Staten Island back to Red Hook where he grew up to experience this big change for the neighborhood. He came to PortSide...

The 2022 public art project, @Work was by Zoe Beloff and Eric Muzzy.  Portraits were made of essential workers in acrylic paint. These were then put on banners with QR codes linked to documentary films they made were essential workers describe...

The large Red Hook, Brooklyn estate of Jordan Coles was put up for sale on June 2nd, 1836, following his death. The map shows the Gowanus Creek, before it was turned into a canal; mills and mill ponds; scattered houses and a mansion, not aligned...

In 1846 when Hamilton Avenue Ferry service to Manhattan started it was the only mass transit option to and from Red Hook, Brooklyn.   This was no longer the case in 1914, street cars and elevated subway lines crossed the Brooklyn Bridge,...

All was not peaceful on the new Hamilton Avenue Ferry.  People, particularly in the evening, were sprawling out across the benches, and extra deckhands were hired to keep the order. One of the directors suggested adding dividing armrests, but the...

Ownership and Control of Brooklyn Waterfront In 1708, Governor Cornbury granted New York City control of the lands on the Brooklyn shore from the low to the high water marks, even though Brooklyn at this time was an independent village. The grant...