By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Four years before the American Civil War, a legal battle emerged from a situation that occurred aboard a steamship from Savannah to New York. One of the passengers, Thomas Steele, a light skinned man, was accused of being a fugitive slave by another...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
1850 Map of the City of Brooklyn by J. F Harrison, published by M. Dribbs. Atlantic Dock has been built by this time but Erie Basin had not and much of present day Red Hook is still under water. The companies listed at Atlantic Dock are: United...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Construction of The Atlantic Dock - a massive, man-made harbor for deep water ships, began on June 3, 1841. The erection of stout stone warehouses and towering grain elevators that could handle products coming down the Erie Canal began in 1844...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1846 when Hamilton Avenue Ferry service to Manhattan started it was the only mass transit option to and from Red Hook, Brooklyn. This was no longer the case in 1914, street cars and elevated subway lines crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, and the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1897, commuters could take a streetcar right to the Hamilton Avenue Ferry. From there it was an easy walk to the businesses clustered around Atlantic Basin. Streetcars also ran to the similarly busy Erie Basin. This according to the Brooklyn...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Hamilton Avenue Ferry was established in 1846. It was run by the Union Ferry Company, who also ran the Fulton Ferry at that time. A major destination was a new upmarket cemetery. The ferry offered a “direct approach by way of the Gowanus...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
All was not peaceful on the new Hamilton Avenue Ferry. People, particularly in the evening, were sprawling out across the benches, and extra deckhands were hired to keep the order. One of the directors suggested adding dividing armrests, but the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Hamilton Avenue in Brooklyn as seen from Union Street, 1924.
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In the early 1900s, many Puerto Ricans migrated to Brooklyn on the S.S Carolina. Most paid for their passage, but some hid on board - and of that number some made the newspapers. This was the case for 4 sixteen year old boys (three of African...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
An aerial view of the Hamilton Avenue Ferry house in Red Hook that includes several piers and other waterfront buildings
