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 The Dutch established the village of Red Hook (Roode Hoek) in 1636. Red Hook was one of the earliest areas in Brooklyn to be settled. The area was named for its red clay soil and the hook shape of its peninsular corner of Brooklyn that projects into the East River. A map from the 1760s shows a developed village at a time when there was little else in Brooklyn. In the 1850s the Atlantic Basin opened and Red Hook became one of the busiest ports in the country. |
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| Grain barges from the Erie Canal would wait at the mouth of the Gowanus Canal for their turn at the active piers. 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. H.P. 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. | ||
More Red Hook History | ||