By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Hughes Marine Hughes Bros. Erie Basin Bargeport Billing themselves a “Clearinghouse for Marine Difficulties” and in operation since 1894, Hughes Brothers is Red Hook’s oldest marine firm. They beat by four years Vane Brothers, founded in...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The “Brooklyn Basin” is another one of those big plans for Red Hook that did not happen . The plan appeared on maps as if it was built - with no indication of its aspirational status - leading people in the 21 st century to think...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A huge fire destroyed Beard's Wharf in Erie Basin. The steamship Idlewild was destroyed, but luckily drifted away and prevented further damage to other ships.
Michael Gallagher, last General Manager of New York Shipyard, successor to Todd Shipyard, interviewed two weeks before selling the site to IKEA, talks about the shipyard, its history and final days. Gallagher represents the 5th generation of his...
John Gladsky is the definition of a colorful old salt. He is a marine salvor and the principal of Gladsky Marine and has an old-time Long Island accent. His oral history expresses nostalgia for the Todd Shipyard and criticism of public policy that...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A giant timber raft, 595 feet long and 55 feet wide, containing 22,000 ‘sticks’ (logs) was floated from the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia to the Erie Basin, Brooklyn, in 1888. An experiment in cost savings, it was calculated that if the wood was...
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
The workings of the dry docks at Erie Basin as described in the January 13, 1883 edition of Scientific American . Jump to the featured article.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Photograph of Erie Basin first graving dock, taken in 1866 its inaugural year. The ship in the graving dock with two tall masts as well as a chimney stack and a large side wheel is believed to be the MORNING STAR, a 2,000 ton liner of the New York...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The racing yacht VALKYRIE , was the unsuccessful British challenger of the ninth America's Cup race in 1895 against American yacht DEFENDER. While in dry dock in Erie Basin, being redied for the race, she was a popular attraction....
