Molly Ivins of the New York Times in her November 1981 peice, RED HOOK SURVIVES HARD TIMES INTO NEW ERA provides a historical overview of the place.

Today, Red Hook is usually defined as the Brooklyn penisula near Governor's Island, with water on three sides and Hamilton Avenue the 4th demarking line. Years ago, Ivans writes, "Red Hook section was the area below Atlantic Avenue near the waterfront, but these days "some parts having been renamed Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens."

The full article can be found on the New York Times website.

Here are just a few excerpts.

• A generation ago, the division was between the ''Creekers,'' those who lived nearer the canal, and the ''Pointers,'' those who lived nearer the actual hook of land off Buttermilk Channel. In the Brooklyn language, the latter comes out ''Pernters.'' 

  A retired longshoreman named Farley - he would give no other name, though he said he was a ''Creeker'' - recalled: ''We had pie and cake wars in them days. If one of them came onto our side, we'd surround the fellow and ask which he liked better, pie or cake. If he gave the wrong answer, we'd beat the deleted out of him. There was no right answer. They did the same to us, be sure.'' 

• There is considerable community opposition to the gentrification of the neighborhood. A leading spokesman for this sentiment is Celia Cacace, who is active in community affairs. ''When they say gentrification,'' she continued, ''they are depicting that they are bringing in a better class of people, and they are stating that those of us who work in manual labor, what are we, nothing? This is insulting.''

• In the area called ''the Back'' - a section next to the waterfront of old row houses still occupied by older Italians and Irish - a new kind of tenant has been moving in. Artists, attracted by the low rents and the spectacular views of the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan, are arriving, and there is some real-estate speculation.