Buttermilk Channel

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Location of the Buttermilk Channel in red, in Upper New York Bay
Looking north through the Buttermilk Channel, Governors Island on the left , Red Hook on the right
View into the Buttermilk Channel, on the left part of Governors Island, behind it the port facilities of Red Hook. The Queen Mary 2 is moored on the pier of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal
Buttermilk Channel from Brooklyn Bridge

The Buttermilk Channel is a tidal channel in the Upper New York Bay between Governors Iceland and the district of Red Hook in Brooklyn . It is about 1.6 kilometers long and 400 meters wide.

Surname

The origin of the name Buttermilk Channel (ger .: Buttermilk Channel) is not secured, there are several possible explanations:

  • The farmers who brought dairy products from Long Island to Manhattan crossed the canal on their daily commute into the city, thus giving rise to the name.
  • Due to the waves that formed in the formerly flat canal, the milk turned into butter on its own during the transport by boat.
  • Before the canal was dredged, cows were herded from Long Island through the shallow canal to Governors Island for grazing.
  • The tidal currents caused heavy foaming of the water in the channel. This foam looked like the foam on milk when it is beaten into butter.

history

In 1902, the formerly shallow canal was dredged by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to a depth of 13 meters in order to be able to navigate the canal with ships to service the industrial facilities of Red Hook. Until the end of the 20th century, the United States Coast Guard , which had a seat on Governors Island, was the main user of the canal. Today the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is located on the Brooklyn side in the Buttermilk Channel.

Trivia

In the winter of 1817 the Buttermilk Channel was so frozen over that horses even crossed the ice to Governors Island.

There is a restaurant in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood called Buttermilk Channel.

The canal is marked with several sea marks, the tidal current here is very strong.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b History of the Buttermilk Channel: The bovine history of Brooklyn's Buttermilk Channel ( Memento from August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Robert Sietsema: Foamy and Dappled at Buttermilk Channel. In: villagevoice.com. March 17, 2009, accessed January 2, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City. The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-300-05536-6
  4. ↑ Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 01-997-4120-4 , 1426 p. Limited preview in Google Book Search

Coordinates: 40 ° 41 ′ 6 ″  N , 74 ° 0 ′ 54 ″  W.