2/2/2024 0 Comments Red hook brooklynThe waterfront jobs moved to New Jersey, and the economy of the neighborhood changed drastically. Containerized shipping required greater upland space and fewer hands to load and unload. Shipping lines began moving goods in long metal containers, rather than the traditional break-bulk shipping of barrels and bales, which were gathered into large nets and hoisted out of a ship’s hold. Over the next decade or so, the neighborhood bled jobs as shipping underwent a dramatic change. But after the peak of the 1950s Red Hook suffered a loss of jobs, population and geographical isolation. Most people lived in the Red Hook Houses, built in 1936 for the growing number of dockworkers.Today the East and West Houses are home to the great majority of the neighborhood: an estimated 8,000 people or 73 percent of Red Hook’s total population. In 1950, at the peak of the era of longshoremen 21,000 people lived in the neighborhood, many of them in row houses second only in age to those in Brooklyn Heights. Al Capone got his start as a small time criminal there, along with his wound that led to his nickname, "Scarface". Red Hook was always known as a tough section of Brooklyn. Lovecraft's short Story " The Horror at Red Hook" (1925), the site about which Budd Shulberg wrote his famous screenplay, "On the Waterfront" and Arthur Miller's play "A View from the Bridge" has added to the area's notoriety. The book and film, "Last Exit to Brooklyn", set in 1952 Brooklyn is a dramatic tale of the lives of Red Hook dock workers and residents. It's even better with a taste of that key lime pie.Grain barges from the Erie Canal would wait at the mouth of the Gowanus Canal for their turn at the active piers. The single most compelling thing about Red Hook is the waterfront, with views of Governors Island, the Statue of Liberty, Lower Manhattan, Jersey City, and the Verrazano Bridge. Red Hook has inspired films by Spike Lee and Matty Rich, as well as a novel by native son James McBride. The neighborhood had gained attention for the "Red Hook vendors," Latin American food purveyors who initially served soccer players, and became a "foodie" destination, but a lingering environmental cleanup has limited their scope. Oddities abound, including an under-the-radar factory making a unique foodstuff, a "robotic church," an art storage facility, and a metal sculpture park. There's a great bakery and an even better key lime pie shop. They still make things in Red Hook, from architectural glass to furniture, and also consumables: a chocolate maker, an ice cream factory, a winery, a couple of distillers, and three craft breweries. (See this Guardian article and map.) Meanwhile, the pandemic has closed some longstanding businesses, or forced them to adapt. Unlikely: a hugely ambitious plan, announced in September 2016, to build as many as 45,000 new apartments and add three subway stops.Īlso troubling: new giant "last-mile" warehouse and delivery facilities, serving New Yorkers' voracious appetite for retail but leading to the demolition of historic structures and contributing to air pollution. A community farm involves local youth, as does the Center for Court Innovation.īut Superstorm Sandy hit the neighborhood, especially the Red Hook Houses, the 1930s housing project that contains the majority of the neighborhood's population, prompting ongoing discussions about how to best recover, and the environmentally just way to rebuild. Developers have floated big, often unresolved plans for remaining parcels of land. Both today provide fantastic outdoor waterfront space, including a park that memorializes Red Hook's maritime past. The giant Ikea arrived, not without controversy, as did the Fairway Market, now Food Bazaar. An "old Brooklyn" business like Sunny's Bar has become an icon, even the subject of a book. The main drag, Van Brunt Street, has become home to "new Brooklyn" businesses, including restaurants and a few galleries-plus, nearby, a giant art space carved out of an old factory. Its rugged feel and mixed-use character finally made Red Hook something of a destination, as well as a perpetual entry in the "next neighborhood" discussion, despite irregular streets and sidewalks, and in some cases lots of trucks. Red Hook's isolation-no subway goes there a bus ride, ferry, or long walk is needed-delayed new residents and new investment. Warehouses and other industrial buildings served a declining shipping industry. Once the moniker for a good chunk of South Brooklyn, today's Red Hook was cut off from Brownstone Brooklyn by the construction of the Battery Tunnel, highway, and a large public housing complex.
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