By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Hurricane Sandy hit Brooklyn around 8pm on October 29, 2012. which caused devastating flooding in Red Hook. The following 32 interviews are part of a project " Sandy: Tell Your Story" recorded by Emergency Management Methodology Partners (EMMP) in...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Alf Dyrland was Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN from her rechristening in 1958 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
A cheat sheet for the bell and jingle code hangs in the fidley of the MARY A. WHALEN. It can be seen in the related entry Bells are Direction, Jingles are Speed which lays out the system. The bell and jingle code was used by the captain...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Captain Nels Helgesen during his long career which began in 1918, commanded every ship of the New York and Porto Rico Steamship Line. The home port of the steamship line was in Red Hook's Atlantic Basin. Starting around the 1920s their ships...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Rich Naruszewicz was interviewed by PortSide NewYork's Jenny Kane in 2014. Scroll down to bottom of the page for audio recording Synopsis of Interview (times are approximate, text is not word-for-word but provides a gist of the audio recording) I...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Col. Daniel Richards was a visionary developer who set Red Hook on the path to becoming one of the world's major commercial ports. Inspired by the powerful economic effects resulting from the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Richards moved from...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
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 1915 for the New York Herald as a...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Gary Shiflett, currently a fleet manager, used to work for Ira S. Bushey and Sons and Eklof Marine. In 2016, while standing in the galley of PortSide NewYork's MARY A. WHALEN - a "Bushey boat" - he told of some of his memories...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Synopsis of interview with Heidi Benedikt, former crew member of the MARY A. WHALEN. Recording times in parenthesis are aproximate. Go to bottom of the page to hear the full interview (0:10) The delegate of the union convinced me to go work...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Ira S. Bushey started his work life driving mules on the Erie Canal in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. By 1895 Bushey began repairing boats, settling up shop in Brooklyn in 1905. His shipyard was located at the foot of Court Street, on...
