Welcome to 400+ years of Red Hook! Inclusion is a theme in this e-museum that memorializes forgotten, overlooked and erased histories. It’s a resource for locals, tourists, history buffs, urban-planners, educators, students, flaneurs. It tells NYC’s maritime story in microcosm. Explore:
- our waterfront past & present
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contemporary Red Hook retail, arts, non-profits, schools, recreation, transit
- flood prep & resiliency info
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Featured Item
Alf Dyrland, Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN, 1962-1978
Alf Dyrland was Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN from her rechristening in 1962 until 1978 when he retired. He was her first captain; she was his last boat.
Alf loved the MARY deeply. As he lay dying in…Index of Items
Telegram, February 12, 1946 to Alf Dyrland declaring the Government takeover of the marine transportation and towing companies in the New York Harbor area and directing strikers to…
Welcome to Red Hook, a neighborhood with a fascinating past and dynamic present!
Red Hook WaterStories is a virtual guide to both past and present of this special neighborhood created by PortSide NewYork. We cover the past via our maritime aka "WaterStories" theme. You can search…
A Cruise in the Erie Basin, by Don C. Seitz, 1892
A Cruise in the Erie Basin, an article by Don C. Seitz, and published in Frank Leslie's magazinesin 1892, relates the story of Red Hook's Erie Basin.
It grew from a scene with “hardly a building to…
Random Items
Erie Basin: The Photography of Jenny Young Chandler, 1890-1915
Newly married and recently widowed in 1890, Jennie Chandler Young began working as a photojournalist to support herself and her two-month old son. Using the moniker "Brooklyn Girl," she worked until…
Resiliency: Detailed Flood Prep Info for Red Hook
Google Translation: Chinese(中文), Spanish(Español)
For our larger collection of resiliency info go here.For Jim McMahon's Red Hook Sandy flood map go here.
Please take our short survey about…
Ad For Atlantic Docks, 1847
Construction of The Atlantic Dock - a massive, man-made harbor for deep water ships, began on June 3, 1841. The erection of stout stone warehouses and towering grain elevators that could handle…●
Text from an Advertisement in Doggets New York City Directory for 1847
Storage for Grain, Flour, Sugar, Molasses, Cotton, ETC.,
AT THE
ATLANTIC DOCK, NEW-YORK.
FORTY ACRES WATER SURFACE WITHIN…
What is Affordable Anyhow, May 2025
The issue of affordable housing is always an issue in the greater Red Hook, Brooklyn area, as it is elsewhere, but it is particularly relevant at the time of this writing (Spring 2025) when the NYC…
There are plans (as of this writing in 2025) to rebuild the current federally-subsidized Red Hook Gardens; 31 two-family townhouses, on and around Visitation Place. The new buildings promise that…