Red Hook (Brooklyn)

Dutch style factory building in Red Hook

Red Hook is a neighborhood in the New York district of Brooklyn . It is located on Upper New York Bay in an area also known as South Brooklyn . The neighborhood is on a peninsula, on the south corner of downtown Brooklyn. This is located in the west on the Buttermilk Channel , the waterway between Brooklyn and Governors Island , in the south it is bounded by Gowanus Bay and in the east by the Gowanus Canal . Around 11,000 people now live in the former industrial district.

history

Red Hook Stores , warehouse in Red Hook, now a supermarket

The name Red Hook comes from the red clay of the soil and the shape of the peninsula (hook, English: hanger, flag) in Upper New York Bay. The city was founded by Dutch settlers from Nieuw Amsterdam around 1636. The original Dutch name was Roode Hoek . At the end of the 18th century there were a few mills and farms in Red Hook, and the low-lying area was mainly used for agriculture. Even then, the peninsula was separated from the rest of Brooklyn by the swampy wetland. In preparation for the Battle of Long Island , Fort Defiance was built on the peninsula in 1776 , from which the bay could be monitored as well as from the fort on Governors Island. Furthermore, the fort, also known as Fort Brooklyn, was supposed to protect the city from a landing by English troops.

Red Hook Houses at the corner of Lorraine and Henry Street

In 1839, planning began to drain the land in order to settle industry and commerce. The many existing mill ponds from the time of the Dutch settlement were filled in and roads were laid. The Erie Basin in the south and the Atlantic Basin in the northeast , which still exist today, were then built. Until the 1920s, the port of Red Hook was one of the most heavily handled cargo ports in the world. At that time, mainly Italian and Irish dock workers lived in the area. The career of Al Capone , who was born in Brooklyn, began in Red Hook. Here he got the famous injury that later earned him the nickname Scarface .

In 1938, the Red Hook Houses project created new living space for the workers in Brooklyn. A total of 161 houses, in which more than 300 families lived, were demolished to make room for the 27 brick buildings with a total of 2,545 apartments. With the advent of containers as the most important marine transport medium in the 1960s, the port increasingly lost its importance, unemployment rose in the area and it deteriorated more and more. This is how, among other things, a shack town for the homeless came into being. About 21,000 people lived in the neighborhood in the 1950s.

Modern red brick shop on Van Brunt Street

In the 1990s, the neighborhood was particularly notorious for drug-related crime . The LIFE magazine described the conditions in Red Hook in a nine-page article entitled Crack: Downfall of a Neighborhood (Crack: decline of a residential area) and led it in the list of the ten most notorious neighborhoods in the country. During this time the neighborhood was known as the crack capital of the United States. The upheaval began after an incident in 1992 in which school principal Patrick Daly was caught in the crossfire of warring youths in Red Hook and was shot while looking for a missing 9-year-old from the neighborhood who had not come home. Now the neighborhood, which in 1991 had seen 20 murders, 10 kidnappings, 526 robberies and 364 assaults, has come under the scrutiny of the judiciary and the public. The police presence has been increased and many social projects have been launched to protect the population and bring work back to the neighborhood. Between 1993 and 2003, crime in the neighborhood dropped dramatically. Among other things, manslaughter has decreased by 100 percent, physical attacks by 68 percent and robbery by 55 percent.

View from the Staten Island Ferry to the Queen Mary 2 berth in Red Hook Harbor

In January 2005, the New York City government signed a contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to use the port facilities and build a new cruise terminal. Today the cruise lines stopping over in New York will dock at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook. In 2008 IKEA opened a store in Red Hook harbor on the site of a former shipyard. Since some historic buildings were also demolished during the construction, there was resistance from the population against this project.

reachability

Entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in Red Hook

The Red Hook district is relatively difficult to reach from the New York City Subway , as the stations of the F and G lines Carroll Street and Smith-Ninth Streets are quite far away. The area is very well served by the New York City Transit Authority bus routes. The easiest way to get to the Manhattan neighborhood by car is through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel . This leads under Governors Island and ends directly in Red Hook. From there the connection goes over to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway , which connects the north of Brooklyn and Queens . Since IKEA opened, the New York Water Taxi has been running between Beard Street Pier near the store and Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan , which also provides a welcome link to the supermarket in Red Hook stores . Initially, the crossing was free of charge, but since many commuters use this connection, the crossing is now subject to a charge. IKEA customers can have the fare refunded at the cash desk.

Tourist importance

Brooklyn Historic Railway Association trams

Lehigh Valley Railroad barge at the Water Front Museum

The Red Hook Waterfront was ranked 11th on the 2007 National Trust for Historic Preservation List of Highly Endangered Places in the United States . The basis for this classification was the planned demolition of important historical industrial buildings such as the Revere and Domino sugar factory, the Old Dutch Mustard building and the Red Hook dry dock . Until 2009, only two buildings in the neighborhood were listed, one is the Sol Goldman Pool , a bathing establishment from 1934 to 1936, and the Brooklyn Clay Retort and Fire Brick Works Storehouse , an industrial and commercial building built around 1859 on Van Dyke Street . In the immediate vicinity of the Sol Goldman Pool is the Red Hook Park , founded in 1934 , a public green area with picnic areas and various ball sports fields.

The Water Front Museum is located in the southeastern part of Red Hook on Conover Street . From there you have a good overview of Upper New York Bay and the Statue of Liberty on the other side of the bay. Outside there is the historic Lehigh Valley Railroad - barge , which at Pier is the Conover Street and in the National Register of Historic Places is registered. The Brooklyn Historic Railway Association has a small museum with a few vehicles on the historic Beard Street Piers (Van Brunt Street). However, the cars on display are in very poor condition. The expansion of a route along the waterfront has begun, which should lead to Brooklyn Heights .

The former warehouse complex, called Red Hook Stores , which was built in 1869 and is now also a listed building, is located on Beard Street Piers and contains a fairway supermarket and loft apartments.

The area around the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal , where around 40 cruise ships dock annually, has already established itself as a tourist destination.

Pier 41 on Van Dyke Street , also known as the Merchant Stores , was built in 1873 by Col. Daniel Richards, who also designed the Atlantic Dock , the place where the Red Hook Container Terminal is now located. and the Erie Basin was responsible. These buildings in particular were the reason for the outstanding importance of the port of Red Hook in the 19th century. The building complex at Pier 41 consists of two brick warehouses. This was where scenes for the film Hitch with Will Smith were filmed in 2005, and it was also the location where the 2009 MTV series The Real World was broadcast . In the early 20th century, Pier 41 was Red's largest employer Hook, Morgan Soda Co. , later White Rock Beverage .