Celebrating Community
The formerly Dutch village of Roode Hoek has come a long way since the 1600s. But on December 11, the motherland briefly returned to Brooklyn when Sander Dekker, the Netherlands’ Minister for Legal Protection, paid a visit to Red Hook, along with seven other officials from the Hague and a Dutch TV crew. Dekker, a politician from the center-right People’s […]
On November 28, Studio 153 on Coffey Street held the opening of the exhibition “Blue City,” which inaugurated the conceptual phase of a long-term plan by the nonprofit RETI Center to build a cluster of “sustainable floating structures” at the Gowanus Bay Terminal (GBX). The development will be “the first of its kind in New York City.” Based in […]
On Friday, December 14, the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) converted the LOOK Hotel at 17 Seabring Street into a temporary homeless shelter that will offer 152 beds for “single adult males who are employed or employable.” DHS has contracted Core Services Group, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit, to operate the facility. No estimate has been provided for how […]
At a Moth StorySLAM at the Bell House in Gowanus, the most remarkable thing is that the live event is exactly as good as The Moth Radio Hour on WNYC. This is surprising because The Moth – a nonprofit whose mission “to promote the art and craft of storytelling and to honor and celebrate the diversity and commonality of human […]
In November, the Mexican eatery Claro became the first restaurant in Gowanus ever to win a Michelin star. Executive chef T.J. Steele, previously of Union Square Cafe, and restaurateur J.T. Stewart, who also co-owns the nearby New American spot Freek’s Mill, opened Claro in the summer of 2017 at 284 3rd Avenue. Generally regarded as the world’s authoritative fine-dining manual, […]
On the afternoon of November 17, leaders of local organizations, activists, and politicians gathered at the Red Hook Public Library with the goal of creating – or beginning to create – a “community-based plan” for the neighborhood. Drawing a crowd of about 25, the meeting was dubbed the Red Hook Community Leaders Summit. “If we, as a community, are not […]
A year after Hurricane Sandy, a Columbia University graduate student named Shannon Geiss came to Red Hook to record conversations with neighborhood residents for her thesis project, “Ambiguous Borders: Defining Community in Red Hook, Brooklyn,” an audio walking tour that would earn her a master’s degree in oral history in 2014. Her work found its final interview subject in a […]
On the streets of Red Hook on October 29, the iconic Japanese sea monster Godzilla took on his fiercest opponent yet: extreme weather. He won, saving the neighborhood from a second natural disaster and keeping its citizens dry and happy over the course of the Barnacle Parade, which has annually celebrated local resilience since the first anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. […]
On October 20, the Red Hook Library hosted a free performance of “Soft” by the Theater of the Liberated. Directed by Carolyn Ferguson, a resident of the Gowanus Houses, the play dramatized the administrative labyrinth that NYCHA tenants have to navigate when they request repairs for their apartments. Last year, the nonprofit Hester Street organized an arts forum called Making […]
Six years after Hurricane Sandy, Red Hook residents are wondering what happened to the city’s promises to safeguard their neighborhood from future floods. The Red Hook Integrated Flood Protection System (IFPS) had its official genesis in “A Stronger, More Resilient New York,” the 438-page planning document produced by Mayor Bloomberg’s Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (SIRR) in 2013. “Flexible […]