By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Carolina Salguero was Associate Curator of the exhibit. Mary Habstritt, President of the Roebling Chapter of the Society of Industrial Archeology (now heading the LILAC Preservation Project) was the curator. Salguero was the mole for the Save the...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The concept of quarantine has been around for a long time. As early as A.D. 549, the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the isolation of people traveling from places ridden with the bubonic plague. Not dissimilar to the social distancing in...
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 alone. 67,000 workers,...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Phil Rizutto worked at Bushey's in the 1970s. "The opening photo of Busheys Shipyard brings back great memories for me since I worked there from 72 till we closed the yard down selling everything of value at auction. My family became close with Ira...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
TODD SHIPYARDS FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. PROSPERITY of companies having contracts to build or repair ships is sharply brought out in the annual report of the Todd Shipyards Corporation, issued a few days ago. The report is the first issued covering a...
Gerard Rokosz is a man deeply in love with his former job as the last dry dock manager at Todd Shipyard. At the time of this 2005 interview, he was working for a marina and nostalgic about the shipyard: "seeing my old office collapsing makes me...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Starting out as a caulker of wooden ships, Ira S. Bushey, by dint of hard work, was the owner of the biggest wooden ship construction yard in the country 1920 - located in Red Hook's Erie Basin. Ira S. Bushey was the first builder and operator of an...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The tanker MARY A. Whalen, flagship of PortSide NewYork was built for Ira S. Bushey & Sons. Ira S. Bushey started his work life driving mules on the Erie Canal in the latter half of the 19th Century. After trying various jobs, he returned...
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...
