Red Hook
Streetsblog Basics
B77 Riders Protest Service Cuts. Is Velmanette Montgomery Listening?
It's a long walk from the Red Hook West houses to the nearest subway stop at Smith-9th Street, and even longer to train connections at Fourth Avenue. Without night-time B77 service, a lot of commuters from the largest public housing project in Brooklyn will have to make that trek -- including a dash beneath the BQE -- on a regular basis. With MTA rescue talks currently at a standstill in Albany, about 100 Red Hook residents marched yesterday in protest of the austerity measures that will soon take effect. Clarence Eckerson documented the rally, organized by the Red Hook East and West Tenants Association.
April 6, 2009
Design Comp Winner Envisions Neighborhood Bike-Share for Red Hook
The Forum for Urban Design announced the winner of its Red Hook bicycle plan competition Monday night, awarding top honors to Brooklyn native Jonathan Rule. The competition sought out ideas to make transit-poor Red Hook the city's most bikeable neighborhood, asking entrants to lay out bike routes and design a bike parking "loft" for the Smith-9th Street subway station.
November 12, 2008
Eyes on the Street: Red Hook Ikea Parking Lot Opens for Business
We hate to pile on more bad news today, but these tipster-submitted photos of the Brooklyn Ikea grand opening bear witness to the onslaught of traffic about to engulf Red Hook. Apparently, the cars queuing up for cheaply-constructed furniture are stretching the store's 1,400 parking spaces to the max (which would explain why Ikea thought it necessary to annex the old Revere Sugar refinery lot next door). Judging from this anecdotal evidence, Red Hook will not only be subject to the 17,000 car trips projected for peak days, but most of those vehicles will be of the huge, extra-cargo-hauling variety.
June 18, 2008
Can Red Hook Become NYC’s Most Bike-Friendly Neighborhood?
Earlier this week, the Forum For Urban Design announced the Red Hook Bicycle Master Plan Design Competition, offering cash prizes for the best proposals to "re-imagine Red Hook as the most bicycle friendly neighborhood in all of New York."
May 2, 2008
Brooklyn Greenway Initiative Benefit This Thursday
When I first met Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath in the spring of 2002, they were picking up trash and planting tulips alongside a Brooklyn-Queens Expressway off-ramp in Cobble Hill. I asked them what they were up to and they told me they were working to create a waterfront greenway for Brooklyn -- a linear park running from Greenpoint to Red Hook. I didn't have the heart to tell them they looked like a gang of juvenile delinquents paying off 40 hours of community service for shop-lifting. Clearly, these people were either insane or visionary.
June 25, 2007
The Seed of a Revolution in Red Hook
How can we get drivers to respect the communities they are driving though? How can we make traffic slow down if we can't change the design of the street or the timing of the lights? How can a community reclaim its neighborhood streets?
February 12, 2007
Eyes on the Street: Weekend Edition
I recently took this boat, a water taxi, from Red Hook to South Street Seaport. Landing at the Seaport after having just been in Red Hook about five minutes earlier gives one an odd supernatural sense of having been teleported.
July 21, 2006
Unwarranted Traffic Chaos in Red Hook
Not surprisingly, the opening of the popular new Fairway Market in Red Hook, has significantly increased daily motor vehicle mayhem in this formerly moribund corner of Brooklyn.
July 11, 2006