By The Red Hook WaterStories team
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced on January 21, 2023 that the city would soon be opening a " Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center [HERRC] at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to temporarily serve the continued influx of asylum...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Shantytowns are a feature of 19th century Brooklyn and New York City. They were the low-income housing of the day, often for newly arrived immigrants. In Red Hook, the presence of shantytowns is directly related to the waterfront (eg, low-lying,...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Red Hook's Atlantic Basin was the main port of entry for early Puerto Rican migrants. They traveled on the ships of the NEW YORK & PORTO RICO STEAMSHIP COMPANY" (aka, PORTO RICO LINE). Jose Mendez is quoted in Place Matters , a joint...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
617 refugees fleeing German-occupied European countries arrived at the foot of Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn in 1941. Crammed aboard the VILLA MADRID, a Spanish liner with accommodation for only 225, they complained about the conditions and...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Spanish Freighter NAVEMAR left from Seville. Spain, with 1,120 passengers, in 1941. Most were Jewish refugees fleeing genocide in German-occupied countries. The conditions on the NAVEMAR, a ship designed with only 28 accommodations, were...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal (BCT) opened in 2006 in Atlantic Basin, and according to the official website "offers all the services and comforts expected from a world-class cruise facility including 200,000 square feet of flexible...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Francesco Pietanza, an immigrant from Italy, became a longshoreman in Red Hook in 1948. His daughter Mary Ann remembers both his hard work and his passion for gardening.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Elizabeth Street was renamed Beard Street Dec 14, 1865. Elizabeth was one of the older streets in Red Hook, officially listed at least as early as 1817. William Beard (1806-1886) was an Irish immigrant, who gained his initial success building rail...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Instead of building the Brooklyn Queens Expressway down Van Burnt Street, Robert Moses decided to build the highway through Hicks Street thus bisecting the Red Hook neighborhood while connecting the Brooklyn Bridge with the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel....
