R. J. Eckard, vice president and research director of C. A. Woolsley Paint and Color Co., had a large library of barnacles. The collection, started in the 1940s, was used to develop barnacle resistant paint that would ward off the many species around the globe. Barnacles attach themselves to the hull of the ship causing significant drag and loss of speed. Historically ships are either periodically scraped to remove barnacles (a large ship might have several tons of barnacles living on her hull) or clad in copper which is expensive but makes a chemically undesirable home for the barnacles. Newspaper and magazine articles describe the barnacle library as being housed in Red Hook. While no address is given it was probably in the Sapolin Paint Company factory building on Clinton Street between Bush and Lorraine. In the 1950s C.A. Woolsley, a popular marine paint brand, was a subsidiary of Sapolin Paint.