Red Hookers' memories of swimming off the docks as kids.  The first few are from chat on southbrooklyn.net in 2004, the last one is from Facebook, 2024

"I remember swimming at the pool and at the docks, and the row boat over to White Rock and sugar from Sucrest, hanging out in Coffey Park and Barshow's junk yard, Christ chapel had father Fox for a priest I remember the Burkhards, the Baffis, Bianchis, Poppalardos, Mary's candy store , Mr. Major's store, Roseman's store…"
Ed Murphy, June 15, 2004

"We would go swimming at the dock, the end of Conover Street and guys from a freighter had to rescue us because we couldn't get back up the rope. Our parents would have died if they knew all the mischief we were into… "
Ed Murphy, June 17, 2004

“When I was growing up it was great, I'm talking about Van Brunt Street, Wolcott Street, Visitation Place, Pioneer Street, etc... Swimming down the pier! Forget about it!!!!!!!!! Making out down long dock! Yeah!!! There was no place like it, and you would only understand these great stories if you had the opportunity to experience them. Don't get me wrong, nobody is in denial, we all knew what was going on, but there were also great things going on. You know what Dorothy says: ’there's no place like home.’“
A real red hooker, August 01, 2004

And back in the day you were able to buy a house for so much less..I don’t know that for a fact because I didn’t come from “The Back”but I had friends who did and told me who are older than me (and I’m old) about what their Father owned on Pioneer St..Red Hook was amazing with stores and barbershops and dentists and butchershops and candy stores and we had a Deli on Richard & Dikeman Sts but imagine lol no coffee shops..we did have an A & P..& 2 drugstores Volpes & Davidson …and a quite a few bars and 1 bar had a pizzeria, Tony’s then became The Bomb Shelter, there was even Taffy Dicks who had homemade Taffy for a nickle the size of a tube of lipstick..we would go there after religious instruction and after Mass on Sunday..Red Hook was a Village in it self..everyone knew each other and kids played in the street and did I mention we had a family doctor on Pioneer St? There was also a Pioneer Theatre on Richard & Pioneer St..there was also a sprinkler in Coffee Park for the kids in the summer and in the winter it froze and kids would ice skate..there was a hero shop on Richard St between Walcott & Dikeman St he had the best meatball sandwich’s for 50cents..we had a luncheonette on the corner of VanBrunt & Dikeman St..great hamburgers..the VFW had sooo many members back then but sad to say lots of the Veterans passed away..kids used to hang out down the pier 38 and go swimming if they didn’t want to go to Red Hook Pool…my memorie still remembers those days..
Louise Conti-Franqui, Red Hook Brooklyn Curb Group, FaceBook. March 24, 2024.