Todd Shipyard Entries

Theme curated by: The Red Hook WaterStories Team

Todd Shipyards started life in Brooklyn, in 1869, as Handren and Robins. After Handren's death in 1892, it became the J. N. Robins Co. and then, after merging with the Erie Basin Dry Dock Company, which had been established by Delamater Iron Works, it became the Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company. William H. Todd had worked for both these companies and, in 1916, he and some associates bought Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company, Tietjen & Lang Dry Dock Company, of Hoboken, and Seattle Dry Dock & Construction Company, to form the William H. Todd Corporation, which would later become Todd Shipyards Corporation. A year later they added the Tebo Yacht Basin Company and developed their initial new construction facilities at that location. This yard was closed in 1937, however, and subsequent new construction was carried out in the Erie Basin yard. The Erie Basin yard was closed in 1986 and sold to Rodermond Industries, which operated the location under the name of New York Shipyard until selling to IKEA around 2005.

See below for a list of other Todd Red Hook waterstories

Todd Shipyards started life in Brooklyn, in 1869, as Handren and Robins. After Handren's death in 1892, it became the J. N. Robins Co. and then, after merging with the Erie Basin Dry Dock Company, which had been established by Delamater Iron Works,…

TODD SHIPYARDS FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. PROSPERITY of companies having contracts to build or repair ships is sharply brought out in the annual report of the Todd Shipyards Corporation, issued a few days ago. The report is the first issued covering a…

A story of a friendship between "Joe" Tynan and "Bill" Todd. They started out driving rivets together at the at the same shipyards and both became presidents of large corporations.In 1921 Joseph H Tynan was the vice-president and Pacific Coast…

This is an advertisement for Todd Ship Yard in the 1920 Port of New York Annual report, a few years before the establishment of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In 1920, Todd had facilities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts; one of the…

Advertisement for Todd's Shipyards in 1921 editions of The Marine Journal, "America's Leading Marine Weakly".Todd Shipyards Corportaion started in Red Hook, Brooklyn and by 1921 had expanded to New Jersey and Washington State. In Brooklyn they…

In 1846 when Hamilton Avenue Ferry service to Manhattan started it was the only mass transit option to and from Red Hook, Brooklyn. This was no longer the case in 1914, street cars and elevated subway lines crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Ferry,…

Industries that would have never considerred hiring women for any sort of job quickly changed their tune during WWII. While men were overseas fighting, women of Brooklyn were contributing to the war effort, and their own financial needs, by making…

Mariners and those in the shipbuilding trades demanded higher wages and better benefits, in the years following WWII.  In 1947, thousands who worked at the Todd Shipyard in Red Hook, Brooklyn went on strike.  They were not alone. 67,000 workers, at…

Labor strikes by shipyard workers, maritime workers, and many others were common in the years following WWII. In 1949, TheBrooklyn Eagle reported on a union walkout at the Todd Shipyard in Erie Basin, after eight riggers were fired for refusing to do…

Photograph of Erie Basin first graving dock, taken in 1866 its inaugural year. The ship in the graving dock with two tall masts as well as a chimney stack and a large side wheel is believed to be the MORNING STAR, a 2,000 ton liner of the New York…

Aniello (Henry) D’Auria began working as a welder's helper at Todd's Shipyard in 1933-34. Learning on the job he became a skilled welder. D'Auria describes the working conditions in shipyards as poor, noisy and noxious. He witnessed an explosion in…

Architectural photographer John Bartlestone was one of many who called for the saving of Todd shipyard in Erie Basin. For more than 140 years - until February 2005 that graving dock had been used to repair large shipping vesels.This photograph is…

Carolina Salguero was Associate Curator of the exhibit. Mary Habstritt, President of the Roebling Chapter of the Society of Industrial Archeology (now heading the LILAC Preservation Project) was the curator. Salguero was the mole for the Save the…

Joe Ruggiero, aka “Joey Chips” since he always showed up at a party with a bag of chips, was a WWII vet who was still driving in 2016 at the time of this interview. He passed in early 2024.He was the embodiment of the Greatest Generation.He served as…

Erie Basin, at one time dubbed “The busiest place in the Port of New York” is a large man-made protected harbor near the southern point of Red Hook. Its U-shaped breakwater, well over one-half mile long, encloses a large area of water. The basin was…