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
The large Red Hook, Brooklyn estate of Jordan Coles was put up for sale on June 2nd, 1836, following his death. The map shows the Gowanus Creek, before it was turned into a canal; mills and mill ponds; scattered houses and a mansion, not aligned...
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
A hand-drawn map of Brooklyn from the 1770s, showing Red Hook, "the road to the new ferry" and distances from Flatbush.
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
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
Bowne Street is likely named after Rodman Bowne who owned land in the area in 1834. The Bowne brothers Rodman (1784-1845) and Samuel (1791-1845) made their success in the ferry business. They ran the Catherine Street Ferry that landed at the foot of...
