Erie Basin is a man-made harbor and shipping facility in

Red Hook, Brooklyn 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 Ca ...

. It is a part of the

Port of New York City A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manchest ...

. Established in 1864, it functions to load and unload ships, store merchandise in warehouses, including grain, and provide dry dock and ship repair services.

History

Colonel Daniel Richards, a successful local merchant, originally envisioned developing the area in 1830s. As early as 1843, William Beard and two brothers, Jeremiah P. Robinson and George Robinson, began purchasing waterfront land piecemeal from a number of old Brooklyn families, and from the town of Brooklyn. Much of the land was marsh, underwater at high tide, and the high ground was scattered with homes. They intended to build an artificially enclosed harbor with shipping facilities. They named it Erie Basin: "Erie" because it initially was designed to process wheat coming down river on barges and ships from the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigability, navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, ...

; and "Basin", because a

canal basin A canal basin is (particularly in the United Kingdom) an expanse of waterway alongside or at the end of a canal, and wider than the canal, constructed to allow boats to moor or unload cargo without impeding the progress of other traffic, and to al ...

is a location at the end of a canal where barges can unload, congregate and make repairs. Beard began work in 1851. He filled in marshes for warehouses, and dredged spaces for deep water. Bulkhead retaining walls replaced the beach. Piers were built out into deeper water. The outer breakwater was built with ballast unloaded by otherwise empty ships arriving from Europe. It was completed by 1864, when the Basin opened for business. The canal boats and barges served a dual function as the homes to the family that worked on them. In the late fall, as the canals began to freeze, from 500 to 700 canal boats assembled in Erie Basin for the winter with from 2,000 to 3,000 people living on board. In the 19th century, the bulk of the shipping trade at the Basin was processing grain grown in the interior of the continent, brought down the Erie Canal by canal boat to Erie Basin, and then overseas by ship. The grain was moved from the canal boats into tall stationary

grain elevators A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

on shore, then transferred to large warehouses along Van Brunt Street (called "Stores"), and then into the ships, which docked next to the Stores. This system proved impractical with time as ships grew taller than the warehouses, and the grain elevators were torn down and replaced with floating grain elevators which could move next to the ships. By 1910, most of the warehouses stored general cargo. A 1920 report gives a picture of what kind of businesses were located at the Basin, called "The Busiest Place in the Port of New York": * The east side of the Basin was leased to the American Molasses Company, where in addition to a large storehouse they built several great tanks for holding thousands of gallons of molasses. * Theodore A. Crane and Sons shipyard was near the eastern end of the breakwater. * William J. Gorkey both built and utilized floating drydocks. Gorkey took over his site from the Balance Dry Dock Company. * Townsend Iron works, run by Rudolph Townsend, repaired ship engines, boilers and the like. * John B. Caddell also had drydocks and provided carpentry work. That site was previously occupied by the Provincial Dry Dock Company. * The Brooklyn Spar Yard manufactured wooden ship masts, booms and gaffs. Its prior names were I.P. Jones, Hudson and Langill's, and the Endner Spar Yard. *

Atlantic Basin Iron Works The Atlantic Basin Iron Works was a ship repair and conversion facility that operated in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. It converted numerous ships to military use in World War II. Founded bef ...

, located on the Van Brunt Street pier, was also in the ship repair business. * Todd Shipyards Corporation had the largest dry dock, see

Erie Basin dry dock Erie Basin dry dock (est. 1866) was a graving dock facility located at Erie Basin, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City. There were at least two docks built, although only one remained into the 21st century. The dock contributed to making Re ...

. As the 20th century proceeded, the need to store goods in dockside warehouses diminished as trucks and trains made overland delivery more readily available. The company was losing viability and the Erie Basin was sold to the Port of New York Authority in the 1950s. Despite the decline in business, the Basin still serves its old functions: grain elevators, warehouses, storage, dry docks and ship repair facilities all still exist and operate in various capacities.

References

{{Coord, 40, 40, 08, N, 74, 00, 52, W, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title 1846 establishments in New York (state) Port of New York and New Jersey Red Hook, Brooklyn

History

See also

References