Red Hook’s History

At the turn of the century, Red Hook was a live and industrious community. Initially known as Roode Hoek, Red hook is located in South Brooklyn, which was formerly an ideal location for prospering industries of any type. With the building of the Red Hook houses in the late 1930’s, affordable housing was provided for the impoverished. These houses specifically housed low-income families whose presence did not contribute to the economy. Later, the construction of the Gowanus Expressway strategically cut off Red Hook from the rest of the borough. The Gowanus Expressway completely bypassed the neighborhood and therefore set it into a deeper economic stoop. With the introduction of containerization, which consequently caused the rapid decline of business, Red Hook’s economic state was at an all-time low.

Despite the economic set back, the building of the Red Hook housing projects began in 1939, which provided affordable housing for the poor.  The income of those residing in the governments housing projects was very low. However, this project enabled these impoverished families to live in dignity. Unfortunately, housing so many low-income residents took its tool on Red Hook’s economic state. With so many poor, money wasn’t being put back into the flow and the region was spending more than it was making. The building of the projects started the process of economic degradation in Red Hook.

At the same time that the houses where straining the economy, the construction of the Gowanus Expressway cut the neighborhood from the rest of the borough, and hindered the neighborhoods development. For lack of access, less investors came to Red Hook and poor transportation prevented any further development of businesses. Red hook was forgotten and neglected.

However, the last nail in the coffin was the introduction of containerization in the 1960’s, which moved the shipping ports – an essential economic factor in Red Hook – to New Jersey. With this development, many factories closed down and businesses were moved. Manufacturing activities provided thousands of additional jobs. With containerization, many of these people lost their jobs. The residents of Red Hook were also facing aging infrastructure, high taxes, lack of affordable space for expansion, and high-energy prices. The shift left many homeless and poor.

Red Hook: Today

Today, the residents of Red Hook are striving to make it a better place. In 2000, the Red Hook Community Courts were opened, “[where] fear, drugs and guns have long been part of the landscape of [the town].” In addition, Ikea was built in Red Hook. Both of these were established to try to make Red Hook a better and safer place for people to live in and others to visit.

Some interesting facts:

Red Hook is home to 1,805 residents.

In 2000, Red Hook had a median family income of $48,125.

In Red Hook, 89% of commuters drive to work.

The following maps are here to show you visually the variety of ethnic groups living in Red Hook.

Dispersion of Whites:

Dispersion of Hispanics or Latino:

Dispersion of Blacks or African-Americans:

Dispersion of families below the poverty line:

Dispersion of individuals below the poverty line:

Residents with income below the poverty level in 2008:

This zip code:	18.9%
Whole state:	13.6%

Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2008:

This zip code:	9.2%
Whole state:	6.0%

Looking at the data above, we can reach the following conclusions:

• Red Hook is a diverse community.
• Red Hook houses many minorites.
• The Red Hook population has many individuals and families found to be below the poverty line.

Vehicles Available In Owner-Occupied House/Condos

Travel Time To Work In Red Hook

According to the previous data, despite the percentage of impoverished in the Red Hook community, there are those who are financially stable and many have enough to own at least one car. In addition, many members of the Red Hook community have at least a 30 minutes commute to Red Hook and are in need of some form of functional transportation. Unfortunately, Red Hook is one of the few communities in New York City that has poor public transportation. That is because of the percentage of minorities and people under the poverty line, which is unfair and isn’t socio-economically sustainable. There were only two buses that used to run in Red Hook, the B61 and B77. Both had horrible service, and people would get stuck waiting for the buses for a very long time. Due to the recent budget cuts, the B77 was cut and the B61 is now the only bus that serves Red Hook. According to the MTA, the reason for doing so is to improve services by eliminating one inefficient bus and improving the route of the other. Unfortunately, even though the bus schedule says that the B61 should come about every 15 minutes during weekdays, people are stuck waiting even longer and are rather drive, which is much less sustainable for the environment.

Red Hook: Sustainable or not?

According to American FactFinder, a census found that the percentage of Caucasians living in Red Hook is 62.6% compared with 75.1% in the U.S. 17.7 percent of the population is African American, compared with 12.3% in the U.S. The percentage of Hispanic residents is 25.3% compared with 12.5% in the U.S.In addition, the percentage of individuals living below the poverty United States.

Therefore, one may conclude that Red Hook is an impoverished neighborhood. With the establishment of the housing projects the many of the population residing in Red Hook were poor. With the construction of the Gowanus Expressway, the region was cut off and lost many businesses and opportunity. Buildings such as the current structure of Fairway had fallen into disrepair and most of the recreational buildings were leveled to make space of businesses that never sprouted.

With damaged infrastructure and no new functioning buildings available, investors stayed away. Red hook is placed in an inconvenient area cut off from proper transportation and flow of cash. With the population in poverty, there is no money flowing back into the economy. MTA seemed reluctant to provide means of transportation there; with only two train reaching the out skirts of the neighborhood and one poorly functioning bus, the B61, running within a vicious cycle is in place. Transportation inhibits economy and the economy inhibits the transportation.

As mentioned above, the MTA decided to reduce and cut off the already faulty services. The general reason given to the public states that because of the congestion and the complaints of the public, they had decided to split the rout of the B61, which is now the only bus running in Red Hook. The isolation creates the transportation problem while ironically the lack of transportation contributes to the isolation.