By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A cheat sheet for the bell and jingle code hangs in the fidley of the MARY A. WHALEN. It can be seen in the related entry Bells are Direction, Jingles are Speed which lays out the system. The bell and jingle code was used by the captain...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The concept of quarantine has been around for a long time. As early as A.D. 549, the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the isolation of people traveling from places ridden with the bubonic plague. Not dissimilar to the social distancing in...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
William Perris was a first in producing fire insurance maps for Brooklyn. The Great fires in 1835 and 1845 that destroyed large sections of the New York City made it clear to insurers the utility of knowing what buildings were made of and what...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Cowhey Marine Hardware operated in Red Hook for about 150 years. The rump remains of the business was at 440 Van Brunt Street, the northwest corner of Van Brunt and Beard Street, and closed in 2005. Cowhey donated their final inventory to...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Dalzell Towing Company purchased the Red Hook Towing Company in 1925 to expand their operations into Brooklyn. They then moved their offices to the Erie Basin breakwater (the man-made protective pier that encloses the basin)...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This 1892 map by the Corps of Engineers, titled Improvement of Gowanus Bay , New York Harbor shows, in addition to the existing Atlantic and Erie Basins, a proposed basin between Hicks and Clinton streets.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The staff of RMC Canvas and Rope, posing by their hand-made rope fender. This Red Hook company ended its long run serving the maritime industry in 2005.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1951 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran a human interest story about Thomas Dunne, an Irish sailor on a comercial vessel who traveled the world but when docked in Red Hook, Brooklyn would not get off the boat for fear of getting lost in the city. Text...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Gary Shiflett, currently a fleet manager, used to work for Ira S. Bushey and Sons and Eklof Marine. In 2016, while standing in the galley of PortSide NewYork's MARY A. WHALEN - a "Bushey boat" - he told of some of his memories...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Captain Nels Helgesen during his long career which began in 1918, commanded every ship of the New York and Porto Rico Steamship Line. The home port of the steamship line was in Red Hook's Atlantic Basin. Starting in the late 1910s, their ships...
