By The Red Hook WaterStories team
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...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Captain Rich Naruszewicz started his career in 1978 as a deckhand. He worked on the MARY A. WHALEN for three years in the early 90s and now is a captain of one of the few remaining oil tankers in the New York Harbor the Chandra B . He was...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Heidi Benedikt - part 1: audio element. Heidi Benedikt - part 2: audio element. Synopsis of interview with Heidi Benedikt, former crew member of the MARY A. WHALEN. Recording times in parenthesis are aproximate. (0:10) The delegate of the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The area between Erie Basin and Columbia Street was home to a makeshift shantytown community known as Tin City, made up largely of unemployed and under-employed maritime workers in the 1920s and 30s. In the winter of 1932, The New York Sun ...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
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...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
" Albert Anastasia and Dandy Jack Parisi were frequently seen in the union offices at 33 President Street, Brooklyn, associating with union officers. The so-called City Democratic Club, located in South Brooklyn, was a hangout for racketeers where...
Hear Tom Teague's reflections on being a Tugboat Captain. These interviews of Captain Tom Teague and Mate Mike Dunn were done on the tugboat JANICE ANN REINAUER in Erie Basin Bargeport by Carolina Salguero c. 2000. Tom Teague: Push,...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
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 1996, what he said out loud...
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 Atlantic Basin Iron Works office and large work shops were located at Imlay, Summit, Van Brunt, and Bowne Streets. They did all sorts of repairs a ship might need including on steamship and diesel motors. Publications from the 1920s list the key...
