Jim Perkins recounts his experience of working on the TAMAROA, a Coast Guard cutter located in the Bushey Shipyard in Red Hook. "The TAMAROA was located at Bushey Shipyard in Brooklyn, in the nicer part of the wrong side of town. What a Godforsaken…

In Ira Bushey vs. USA (1968) the US Government was held liable for the conduct of a drunken sailor. After returning to the United States, a sailor on the Coast Guard cutter TAMAROA, then docked in a floating drydock in Bushey’s shipyard, turned some…

Ira S. Bushey & Sons'was a shipbuilder and oil company based in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Remarkably, the company combined three different endeavors: a shipyard, a fuel terminal, and a fleet of vessels that moved fuel. Busheys built around 200 vessels…

In 1920, the New York Tow Boat Exchange represented 34 independent tow boat companies. In their advertisement in the Port of New York Annual, the Exchange boasted that their fleet of 200 boats could handle anything "from the docking and shifting of a…

Court Street, from Bryant Street to Gowanus Canal, showing in the background the Ira S. Bushey and Sons boat building plant. October 8, 1937. P. L. Sperr. Note: Ira S. Bushey was more than a shipyard. They also were a fuel terminal. The fuel tanks…

In 1955, the ESSO NEW YORK, became the first American super Tanker to navigate the Gowanus Creek Channel to deliver oil to the Patchogue Oil Terminal, a subsidiary of Ira S. Bushey & Sons, at the foot of Court Street. The dredging of the…

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 the…

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…

Vane Line Bunkering (sometimes called Vane Brothers) at the foot of Red Hook’s Court Street in the Gowanus Bay, occupies part of the site of the former Ira S. Bushey & Sons facility. The property is owned by Buckeye who also owns and operates the…

The oil tankerMARY A. WHALENwas launched May 21, 1938.The ship is PortSide NewYork's ambassador to theBLUEspaceand site of our offices and many programs. Why she is significant? She is the the last of her kind in the USA.She is the only oil tanker…

Photograph of an able-bodied seaman working in snow flurries at Ira S. Bushey and Sons' old shipyard. The end of the line he is working on has been folded back and braided into itself to form a loop. He is inspecting and tightening that splice.…

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 of working on ships. His…