The Red Hook WaterStories team has not yet written much about Red Hook longshoremen, their labor issues and working life. (This project currently receives no direct funds). We hope to remedy that some day but until then here...
He Saw the North Pole: A Colorful Description of Red Hook and a Fanciful Tale: 1888
HE SAW THE NORTH POLE - The Intelligencer - Wheeling W. Virgina - May 17 1888 The Intlligencer, a newpaper out of Wheeling, West Virgina, ran a colorful story in the Spring of 1888 (likely printed in many other papers accross the country too)...
Oil Ship Explosion, Atlantic Basin, 1924
In the afternoon of June 24, 1924, the Egremont Castle, a 9,000-ton capacity oil ship of the Union Castle line was being loaded when the ship’s winch seized while lowering a 100-gallon drum of gasoline causing its load suddenly jerk upwards....
Nancy Kearse Gooding, a Red Hook Leader
Visitation Place in Red Hook, Brooklyn, was co-named Nancy Kearse Gooding Way on December 10, 2023. Red Hook in the 1970s was going through tough times. Longshoremen strikes idled many, and industries that depended on shipping then laid off...
Twenty Years of Moving Cargo: Local 1814 20th Anniversary Publication 1954 - 1974
Local 1814, International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO commemorated their 20 th anniversary in 1974 with a publication celebrating their accomplishments and with a positive outlook for the future. Higher wages, job security, health...
Pete Panto (1910 - 1939)
Pietro "Pete" Panto was an Italian American longshoreman and union activist who was murdered by the mob for speaking out and organizing against corrupt union leadership. The Red Hook WaterStories team has not written an entry about him yet but...
Winter storm batters, buries and freezes ships and shore, February 1895
Huge waves crashing down on the deck as hail, steamers burning through their coal just to stay in place against the wind, ships being thrashed by the storm and everything, and everyone, frozen and encrusted in ice. These are the stories that the...
Blacks on the New York Waterfront During the American Revolution
Blacks were one of the first groups to arrive in Brooklyn during the Dutch colonial period, usually as slaves, though there were also freemen. To provide an overview of some early Black history, PortSide commissioned this article by Charles Foy...
Strike Busting: Swedes and Norwegians willing to work for less at Finlay's Stores, Atlantic Dock, 1885.
On Saturday March 14, 1885, workers at Finlay's Stores were told that they hourly rate would be cut to 20 cents an hour, down from twenty-five. They refused to work for less pay and the company replaced them with about fifty Swedes and Norwegians....
Carefree Life on Lighters in Harbor Attracts Many, 1928
During the 1920’s the borough of Brooklyn, New York, which roared with speak-easies and flapper dresses, promised an additional lure of luxurious living, as reported by the E.K. Titus in the article, "Carefree Life on Lighters in Harbor...