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Red Hook

We love Red Hook! and participate in its revitalization in many ways.  Red Hook is now a destination neighborhood. However, it still lacks many year round attractions.  PortSide NewYork aims to provide those, aboard the tanker Mary A. Whalen, with our own waterfront exhibit center, water-themed events, and our WaterStories trail that will guide visitors through local history and the growing list of activities, places to shop, dine or have a drink. An interim version of WaterStories is our Visitor Guide to Red Hook launched 9/09.  We also promote the Red Hook events of other organizations and retail venues. We believe our working waterfront is one of the main attractions and defining features of our neighborhood, and we continually seek ways to turn it into and educational and cultural feature and an involved neighbor.

cruise terminal info Brooklyn Cruise Terminal website  and ship schedule

getting here: B61 bus, B77 bus, IKEA ferry (no longer free to non-IKEA shoppers) weekday and weekend, free IKEA shuttle buses

News Box:
11/21/09 great description of tug and barge work in Erie Basin from a blog by a Reinauer tug captain

9/09 new Visitor Guide to Red Hook created by PortSide NewYork. No other map covers what opened in 2009 (Red Hook bucked the economic recession trend), plus info on parks, services, where to access the waterfront, and text on a local history and the local vibe researched and written by PortSide. 11/29/09: Update coming soon, lots more shops have opened in two months!

9/13/09 Dutch Flat Bottom Fleet event in Atlantic Basin attracted hundreds. more

Summer 09, Red Hook was featured in French news magazine L'Express thanks to PortSide.  Their NY correspondent called looking for tips fo a cover story about summering in NYC, and we called local retail businesses and got them and him on the Mary Whalen right away. Read the feature box on Red Hook in translation here or test your high school French on the whole story here

 

other Red Hook Features


Red Hook is a rapidly reviving, mixed-use neighborhood. There is a large working waterfront, a burgeoning artist colony, and quality  artisanal food and craft emporia along our main drag Van Brunt Street.  We even have the freshest lobsters for sale in NYC and an urban farm!  Two large shopping magnets, Fairway and IKEA, now define the southern rim of the peninsula.  We are a destination for many reasons.

Red Hook has killer harbor views, 70 acres of city park space, 3 garden centers and and two waterside gardens designed by Lyndon Miller, noted landscape designer.  There are public access esplanades that are not public parks. You can take in water views from Columbia Street, IKEA, the swath from Beard Street Pier to Pier 41, and Valentino Park.  Our waterfront has attracted a Minke whale and a harbor seal

As to the city parks: Red Hook Parks  has one of the city's largest outdoor pools (occasionally enjoyed by local ducks), ball fields, leafy Coffey Park, the waterfront gem Louis Valentino Memorial Pier with one of the city's few designated boat launches for hand-powered boats (right).  See Red Hook Boaters for free kayaking there. 

"Taco Soccer" - in the park on Bay Street - great soccer plus a foodie fave, the  Latin American food vendors.   porkchop-express profiles each vendor; note links to each vendor at right of that page.  The open air market scene has been changed from that webpage due to Parks Department regulations, the vendors now operate out of food vendor trucks.  Mexican baseball league plays at Columbia Street ball field near the grain terminal. More latin food there...

Red Hook's non-profits do much for the community and create many reasons to visit:

  • Added Value youth program, urban farm, and summer Saturday farmer's market at the Todd Memorial Ballfield.

  • Truck Farm a documentary project about a garden in a pickup truck, one usually found on Van Brunt Street.

  • Dance Theatre Etc Site-specific dance and events, art as civic engagement

  • Off the Hook  Plays by local teens, arts as empowerment

  • BWAC (Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition) non-profit group shows at the foot of Van Brunt Street.

  • Waterfront Museum Barge (right), a PortSide partner, at the end of Conover Street, summer concerts, Circus Sundays, school programs.  Open house every Thursday and Saturday from 4 to 8pm.

  • Kentler International Drawing Space small gallery with quality shows, and our oldest--established 1990.

  • "Sunday's at Sunny's" book readings, 3pm the 1st Sunday of the month, at Sunny's bar, coordinated by author Gabriel Cohen

Most of our bars also host bands, readings and special events. Find them on the Visitor Guide to Red Hook produced by PortSide.

Maritime Activity

Several maritime firms have located here in the past 20 years. There are over a dozen maritime support service businesses inland in addition to the marine businesses on the waterfront listed below. 

American Stevedoring, container port, PANYNJ specs on the port (before Piers 5, 6, 11 and 12 were cut from the port in 2005)

Brooklyn Cruise ship terminal

Gowanus Industrial Park, subleases to other vessels, planned cement port

Hornbeck, tug and barge port, original home of the Mary Whalen, soon to be run by Vane Brothers from Baltimore.

 

Hughes Marine, barge rental and operators of Erie Basin which is home to several marine subtenants (Lomma Crane, Buchanan Marine, Bridge Construction, Sea G. Marine Repair, and others.)

New York Water Taxi now part of Harbor Experience LLC, excursion boat homeport

Reinauer Transportation, tug and barge port and co-owners of Erie Basin with Hughes Marine

 

and we have historic maritime in the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge

Recreational Boating

Valentino Park is a city-designated hand-powered boat launch area. A permit from the Parks Department is required. 

The Red Hook Boaters, a PortSide partner, offer free kayaking on many weekends inside the pierhead line.

 

 

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hook%2C_Brooklyn