By The Red Hook WaterStories team
“Next to killing a cat on board ships, is to maltreat a cat in a ship's chandlery. The ship chandlery cat is a beautiful specimen that is stroked by every seaman who comes in. Its function in life is to take care of the big rats that come from the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
July 7 - We breakfasted with General Putnam, who we found to be rough in his manner and speaking, but cheerful. He offered us his barge and D Morgan accompanied us to Governor’s Island, Red Hook and a Neck that joined Long Island. The works at...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Henry Farrer was born in England in 1844 but moved to America, ending his career in Brooklyn in 1903. He was known for his tonalist watercolor landscapes and etchings. His listed works include On Buttermilk Channel, At Red Hook (1880) and...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Newspaper photo of the shacks of Red Hooks "Tin City" or shanty towm (It went by several other names, such as Hoover City, and Orkenen Sur). The large building on the right is the Sapolin Paint Company factory (now Treasure Island) on...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Longtime Red Hook resident and historian recalls poor folks living in slum building when he lived on 113 Bush Street and the neighboring "Tin City" or "Hoover City" shanties of the 1930s for the Red Hook Star Review.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Fibre Disintegrating Company had a large factory in Red Hook making paper from bamboo during the period after the Civil War. Schooners sailed the bamboo from Jamaica to Brooklyn. The Journal of the Society of Arts reported that...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1868, engineer G. B. Brainerd, reported in The American Naturalist on the sedimentary layers under the Erie Basin. He found beneath 10 feet of water at low tide: 1. Two feet of mud, the ordinary sediment of the bay 2. One foot of yellow sand 3....
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Philip Kasinitz and Jan Rosenberg in their paper, Missing the Connection: Social Isolation and Employment on the Brooklyn Waterfront (1996) conclude that: "few local residents hold local jobs in the private sector. A survey of local employers...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Norwegian Seaman’s Mission, designed as a safe and wholesome place for sailors between jobs stood at 111-113 Pioneer Street in 1919. Missions provided food, beds and reading rooms.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
1-2 Empire Stores; Water and Dock, Fulton 3 Empire Stores, ft. of Main, Catherine 4 Martin Stores @No. 34 Furman, Fulton 5-6 Martin Stores @ No. 66 Furman, Fulton 7-8 Robert Stores,...