Red Hook is a neighborhood in western Brooklyn, New York City, United States, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. It is located on a peninsula projecting into the Upper New York Bay and is bounded by the Gowanus Expressway and the Carroll Gardens neighborhood on the northeast, Gowanus Canal on the east, and the Upper New York Bay on the west and south. A prosperous shipping and port area in the early 20th century, the area declined in the latter part of the century. Today, it is home to the Red Hook Houses, the largest housing project in Brooklyn.
Red Hook is part of Brooklyn Community District 6, and its primary ZIP Code is 11231. It is patrolled by the 76th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Politically, Red Hook is represented by the New York City Council's 38th District.Current City Council Districts for Kings County, New York City. Accessed May 5, 2017.
History Colonization The native Lenape referred to the region as , meaning a high point of sandy soil. The village was settled by Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam in 1636, and named , after the red clay soil and the point of land projecting into the Upper New York Bay. In Dutch, means "point" or "corner", and not the English hook (, something curved or bent). The actual of Red Hook was a point on an island that stuck out into Upper New York Bay at today's Dikeman Street west of Ferris Street. In 1657, became part of the Town of Brooklyn.
Rapelye Street in Red Hook commemorates the beginnings of one of New Netherland's early settler families, the Rapelje clan, descended from the first European child born in the new Dutch settlement in the New World, Sarah Rapelje. She was born near Wallabout Bay, which later became the site of the New York (Brooklyn) Naval Shipyard. A couple of decades after the birth of his daughter Sarah, Joris Jansen Rapelje removed to Brooklyn, where he was one of the Council of twelve men, and where he was soon joined by son-in-law Hans Hansen Bergen. Rapelye Street in Red Hook is named for Rapelje and his descendants, who lived in Brooklyn for centuries.
American Revolution During the Battle of Brooklyn (also known as the Battle of Long Island), Fort Defiance was constructed on the hoek. It is shown on a map called "a Map of the Environs of Brooklyn" drawn in 1780 by Loyalist engineer George S. Sproule. The Sproule map shows that the Fort Defiance complex consisted of three redoubts on a small island connected by trenches, with an earthwork on the island's south side to defend against a landing. The entire earthwork was about long and covered the entire island. The three redoubts covered an area about by . The two principal earthworks were about by , and the tertiary one was about by . Maps from Sproule and Bernard Ratzer show that Red Hook was a low-lying area full of tidal mill ponds created by the Dutch.
General Israel Putnam came to New York on April 4, 1776, to assess the state of its defenses and strengthen them. Among the works initiated were forts on Governor's Island and Red Hook, facing the bay. On April 10, one thousand Continentals took possession of both points and began constructing Fort Defiance which mounted one three pounder cannon and four eighteen pounders. The cannons were to be fired over the tops of the fort's walls. In May, George Washington described it as "small but exceedingly strong". On July 5, General Nathanael Greene called it "a post of vast importance" and, three days later, Col. Varnum's regiment joined its garrison. On July 12, the British frigates Rose and Phoenix and the schooner Tyrol ran the gauntlet past Defiance and the stronger Governor's Island works without firing a shot, and got all the way to Tappan Zee. They stayed there for over a month, beating off harassing attacks, and finally returned to Staten Island on August 18. It appeared that gunfire from Fort Defiance did damage to the British ships.
Samuel Shaw wrote to his parents on July 15:
Almost the entire New York metropolitan area was under British military occupation from the end of 1776 until November 23, 1783, when they evacuated the city.
Industrial era
In the 1840s, entrepreneurs began to build ports as the "offloading end" of the Erie Canal. These included the Atlantic Basin, dredged in 1850, and the Erie Basin, dredged in 1864. Simultaneously, in 1849, the New York Legislature granted permission to dredge the nearby Gowanus Creek so it could be used as a commercial waterway connected to Upper New York Bay. The creek's dredging was completed in 1860. Another act of the Legislature in 1867 allowed the canal to be deepened further. With the completion of the creek's dredging, Red Hook became an industrial hub, seeing up to 26,000 ships per year.
Dockworkers of various ethnicities began settling in Red Hook. African-American dockworkers began to move to Red Hook in the 1890s, while Italians had settled around Columbia Street. Many dockworkers lived in boarding houses, some of which had been speculatively built rowhouses. The industrial development also gave way to haphazard shanty towns. By the mid-1880s, a "Slab City" of 2,000 squatters and several hundred livestock had developed around Hamilton Avenue.
By the early 20th century, Red Hook had gained a reputation of decay, with organized crime having started to develop in the area. From the 1920s on, many poor and unemployed Norwegians, mostly former sailors, were living in the area in what they called Ørkenen Sur ("The Bitter Desert") around places like Hamilton Avenue and Gospel Hill. In 2015, NRK made a documentary about it in Norwegian. There is also an old documentary film about this.
Investment and decline In the 1930s, the area was poor, and the site of the current Red Hook Houses was the site of a shack city for the homeless called a "Hooverville". Officials began looking to revitalize Red Hook at that time. The Red Hook Play Center and Red Hook Recreational Area opened in 1936 and 1940, respectively. The Red Hook Houses were completed in 1939.
In the 1990s, Life magazine named Red Hook as one of the "worst" neighborhoods in the United States and as "the crack capital of America". Patrick Daly, the principal of P.S. 15 in Red Hook, was killed in 1992 in the crossfire of a drug-related shooting while looking for a pupil who had left his school. The school was later renamed the Patrick Daly School after him, as he was beloved within the school.
In 2010, Red Hook's first community newspaper, The Red Hook Star-Revue, began publication. Red Hook was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, two years later. In 2024, the New York City government took over about of land on Red Hook's waterfront, with plans to redevelop it. In September 2025, a community task force voted 17–8 to approve the $3.5 billion Brooklyn Marine Terminal Vision Plan, which calls for up to 6,000 apartments (40 percent permanently affordable), a modernized 60-acre all-electric port terminal, approximately of public open space, and a $200 million investment in the nearby Red Hook Houses. The plan was approved through a general project plan process rather than the standard Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which drew opposition from some community members and local organizations.
The Mary A. Whalen and Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Location Red Hook is a peninsula between Buttermilk Channel, Gowanus Bay, and Gowanus Canal at the southern edge of Downtown Brooklyn. Red Hook is in the area known as South Brooklyn, which, contrary to its name, is actually in western Brooklyn. This name is derived from the original City of Brooklyn which ended at Atlantic Street, now Atlantic Avenue. By the 1950s, anything south of Atlantic Avenue was considered South Brooklyn; thus, the names "Red Hook" and "South Brooklyn" were applied also to today's Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia Heights, and Gowanus neighborhoods. Portions of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill were granted landmark status in the 1970s and were carved out of Red Hook.
Red Hook has a fully frontal view of the Statue of Liberty, which was oriented to face towards the southeast, welcoming ships coming into New York Harbor.Frequently Asked Questions, Statue of Liberty National Monument. Accessed March 9, 2025. "Which direction does the statue face? The Statue of Liberty faces Southeast and was strategically placed inside of Fort Wood which was a perfect base for the Statue. The Statue's position was also perfect for ships, entering the harbor, to see her as a welcoming symbol."
Red Hook is the site of the NYCHA Red Hook Houses, the largest public housing development in Brooklyn, which accommodates about 6,000 people. Red Hook also contains several parks, including Red Hook Park. The park is in the vicinity, if not the exact location, of where the celebrated Civil War era baseball team Excelsior of Brooklyn played many of their home games. The neighborhood contains a heritage trail recalling its portion of the Battle of Brooklyn in the revolutionary war.
IKEA controversy
Red Hook has a large IKEA store () that opened on June 18, 2008, near the Gowanus Expressway. The building of IKEA was controversial. Opponents cited concerns including traffic congestion, a decrease in property values and destruction of this transit-oriented neighborhood and historically significant buildings in the area. Brooklyn artist Greg Lindquist exhibited a group of paintings in February 2008 in New York City that depicted the IKEA site in process, juxtaposing the maritime decay with the new construction.
As part of the IKEA development, a number of Civil War era buildings were demolished and the Red Hook graving dock, a 19th-century dry dock still in use, was filled in and leveled for use as a parking lot. A Maritime Support Services Location Study by the New York City Economic Development Corporation found that New York City needed eight more dry docks. According to the report, it would cost $1 billion to replace the one sold to IKEA, although no schedule for replacement was announced. In addition, IKEA's contractor was found to be in "violation for not having filed asbestos work, failing to monitor the air, not posting warnings, failure to construct decontamination protections before disturbing the asbestos-containing materials, and doing nothing to protect and decontaminate the material, as well as the workers and building waste."
Demographics Based on data from the 2010 United States census, the population of the Carroll Gardens/Columbia Street/Red Hook neighborhood tabulation area was 38,353, a change of 26 (0.1%) from the 38,327 counted in 2000. Covering an area of , the neighborhood had a population density of .Table PL-P5 NTA: Total Population and Persons Per Acre – New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2010, Population Division – New York City Department of City Planning, February 2012. Accessed June 16, 2016.
The racial makeup of the Carroll Gardens/Columbia Street/Red Hook neighborhood tabulation area was 60.9% (23,342) White, 11.9% (4,573) African American, 0.2% (61) Native American, 4.5% (1,728) Asian, 0% (13) Pacific Islander, 0.4% (143) from other races, and 2.4% (912) from two or more races, and Hispanic or Latino of any race were 19.8% (7,581) of the population.Table PL-P3A NTA: Total Population by Mutually Exclusive Race and Hispanic Origin – New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2010, Population Division – New York City Department of City Planning, March 29, 2011. Accessed June 14, 2016.