By The Red Hook WaterStories team
How Red Hook's topography evolves from Native American summer camp to Dutch mill ponds with oyster beds, then ports, warehouses and finally a street grid. Did you know that the 1840s development of Atlantic Dock jumpstarts a 100-year development...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Whoa! Some historic maps and illustrations show aspirations not reality; media then and now can make mistakes, planners and real estate developers can misrepresent Red Hook. This is the start of a feature article. To see the full essay click here:...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1950, Mrs. Callahan, born in 1853 looked back at nearly 100 years of living in Red Hook. She remembered farm animals, the 'Meadows', streams, flooding and ice skating on a pond that formed where Coffey Park is now. ● … I was born in the old...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Red Hook Houses East and West, like many other Red Hook buildings, were built on land that was either originally underwater, or was a tidal marsh. The floods of Hurricane Sandy were a harsh reminder of this...
Benjamin Ratzer surveyed Brooklyn for the British in 1766-7. Cartographer Eymund Diegel has overlaid the modern street grid onto Ratzer's map Colors have been added to the map to indicate features such as beaches, wetlands, forests and shorelines....
Bergen Hill once stood tall in Brooklyn, before developers had it carted away for fill to make the Atlantic Docks of Red Hook. Looking at historic maps from 1775, 1837 and 2004 cartographer Eymund Diegel determined that the hill, which was in...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
This article from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday, March 12, 1911, recounts the winter-time lives of Erie Canal barge families who winter in Erie Basin. Colonies of Cozy Canal Boats Cluster for Winter City of Inland Navigators Prepares for Annual...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
No man ever, perhaps, got so much the best of old Beard as did Louis Heineman, the housemover of the Twelfth ward” (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1891) When Louis Heineman died in 1904, he was reportedly 104 years old, and likely the oldest...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A fair portion of today’s Red Hook was once water. An 1887 article in the Brookyn Eagle marvels that Henry and neighboring streets have been extended nearly half a mile in ten years. Marshes with knee-high water, or deeper, were being...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A selection of historic nautical charts, from the NOAA Office of Coast Survey. They provide interesting details on the evolution of Red Hook. Today's Office of Coast Survey traces its charting efforts back to 1807, when President...
