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Shaft Alley Saloon by The Red Hook WaterStories Team

“We have mostly men here – very few women.  No unattached women permitted at the bar. That’s a simple way of preventing trouble.” One of the best known watering holes in Red Hook was the Shaft Alley saloon. Fortune magazine, in a 1937 essay about the New York Waterfront, said” You won’t find enlisted men over on […]

Brooklyn Spar Company By The Red Hook WaterStories Team

In 1921, the Brooklyn Spar Company advertised in The Marine Journal that it sold wooden masts and posts for derricks and flag poles, which the company made at its waterfront facility at the foot of Columbia Street. In O.R. Pilat’s 1929 article, John J. Murphy, a 40-year veteran of the Brooklyn spar business, said that during World War […]

Tug Talk: Mariners’ Names for Red Hook

By The Red Hook WaterStories team Tug captains use landmarks (points on land visible from the water) to tell other mariners and the Coast Guard VTS (Vessel Traffic Service – the harbor equivalent of air traffic controllers) where they are.  This is not always as straightforward as it sounds, but it is proof that maritime […]

Overspreading on transit seats ca. 1850. Contentions on the Hamilton Avenue Ferry

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 Chief Engineer feared they would provoke ridicule. Overspreading to […]

Red Hook History: Bars and Restaurants in the 1880s by Maryam Daghmoumi

The idea behind this Red Hook history blog is to get a snap shot view of the restaurants and bars in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the late 1800s according to the research done by Maggie Blanck. First I feel compelled to mention that there were 10 restaurants listed in the 1883 directory and 16 listed […]

Red Hook Histories : East River Ferry, then and now by Maryam Daghmoumi

Hopefully, many of you have already had a chance to take the new South Brooklyn Ferry route that launched on June 1st. If you haven’t yet had the chance, then you are missing out on literally the best way to get in and out of the Red Hook / Columbia Waterfront District area.  For those that […]

Red Hook History Part 1 by Maryam Daghmoumi

Walking around Red Hook this past week felt like I was stepping through a worm hole, into a time when Red Hook would have been a busy, bustling port town and not just the sleepy little seaside community I have known for so long.  Maybe it was the hordes of sailors docked here for Fleet […]