The manufacturing businesses in Red Hook, in the early 1920s were largely making metal products according to The Merchant's Association of New York manufacturing map.  Metal products for metal ships.  Companies such as Tickle Engineering Works near Atlantic Basin, and the Todd Shipyard in the Erie Basin.   The Brooklyn Spar Company was still around, making wooden masts and similar items, but their days were numbered.  Manufacturers of heavy metal equipment chose to near the ports of Red Hook to ease the transportation of their products and the raw materials they used to make them. 

Manufacturing Map, Merchant's Association of New York, 1922