Red Hook

July 6, 2017

$2.5M Red Hook house has a Cali boho vibe–and an outdoor kitchen

Topanga Canyon retreat? Stinson Beach surf shack? If you guessed either you'd be wrong, but this fully-detached single-family home at 71 Dikeman Street in Red Hook, asking $2.5 million, definitely has a California bohemian vibe that's perfect for the laid-back waterfront neighborhood. In addition to a well-executed renovation, the two-story house has a 50-foot landscaped garden with an outdoor kitchen that's the picture of summer leisure living.
Tour this laid-back beach shack

Distinctive Homes

June 16, 2017

City scales back storm-protection project in Red Hook

By Devin Gannon

Flooding during Hurricane Sandy left many residents of Red Hook without basic services for weeks. While many had hoped the city’s $100 million initiative would help protect the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood from a 100-year flood event, a new feasibility study shows the plan would actually only protect it from a 10-year flood event. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the city plans on scaling back the flood-protection system in Red Hook because of its high costs, and the study revealed a larger project could cost about $300 to $500 million more.
Find out more

Policy

May 14, 2017

$3M SHoP Architects-designed Red Hook townhouse is clad in zinc, concrete, and a hardwood screen

By Michelle Cohen

While we're used to seeing headline-stealing buildings from innovative design firm SHoP Architects–Barclays Center, the American Copper Buildings, and what will be Brooklyn's tallest tower, to name a modest few–we don't see SHoP-designed townhouses every day. This particular two-family home at 87 Dikeman Street in the heart of creative and laid-back Red Hook has at least four bedrooms and consists of an owners' triplex and a rental unit plus a garden and off-street parking. But it's the home's design that will likely attract the most attention, with an exterior comprised of zinc panels juxtaposed with polar white concrete planks and accented by a hardwood slat screen and full-height peerless windows. This 3,080-square-foot home, its innovative design–and design pedigree–can be yours for $3.15 million.
Tour this unique Brooklyn home

April 24, 2017

Red Hook townhouse with skyline views and rental income asks $2.5 million

By Emily Nonko

This three-family brick townhouse comes from Brooklyn's waterfront neighborhood of Red Hook. The area is known for its striking views of the Lower Manhattan skyline, and the listing promises those same views from the top floor of this home, located at 371 Van Brunt Street. Add in tin ceilings and fireplaces throughout the lower levels, and the historic property, now on the market for $2.5M, is sure to charm.
Time to check it out

Distinctive Homes

April 4, 2017

The 10 best neighborhoods for New York City artists

By Devin Gannon

Like most things in New York, creative communities come and ago as new development and rising rents force artists to move on to the next best, or cheaper neighborhood. While 6sqft found 'hoods like the Upper East Side, Harlem and Long Island City to be the best places for artists a few years back, we've updated our top-10 list to reflect the changing times. Ahead you'll find some areas you may expect--Sunset Park and Bushwick, for example, along with more up-and-coming artsy enclaves like Newark, Washington Heights, and the South Bronx.
The full list right this way

March 24, 2017

New renderings revealed for NYCHA’s raised earth Red Hook Houses by KPF

By Devin Gannon

When Superstorm Sandy hit the community of Red Hook, thousands of residents were left without power and basic necessities for over two weeks. The neighborhood’s infrastructure suffered substantial damage, with almost all basement mechanical rooms destroyed. In an effort to rebuild Brooklyn’s largest housing development, Red Hook Houses, post-Sandy, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) commissioned a project by architecture firm Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF). Their “Lily Pad” design includes installing 14 “utility pods” that deliver heat and electricity to each building, as well as creating raised earth mounds to act as a flood barrier (h/t Archpaper).
Find out more here

February 5, 2017

A new construction carriage house in Red Hook boasts plentiful indoor and outdoor space

By Emily Nonko

A unique property in a unique neighborhood has hit the market for a cool $1.9 million. 97 King Street, in the waterfront neighborhood of Red Hook, is a newer construction building inspired by the carriage house design. The three-story property holds a 270-square-foot garage on the ground floor--currently home to the textile company Artemisia--and living space above. It's topped with an impressive roof deck that looks over Lower Manhattan and the surrounding waterfront.
Go inside

Distinctive Homes

December 5, 2016

As Red Hook’s Norman Foster office complex plans move forward, local residents want more input

By Michelle Cohen

In October 6sqft reported that work on Thor Equities' 7.7-acre waterfront office and retail complex, architect Norman Foster‘s first Brooklyn commission, had begun. A recent meeting between the developers' representatives and community members to discuss plans for the 818,000-square-foot two-building project on the former site of Red Hook’s Revere Sugar Refinery–known as Red Hoek Point–revealed concerns that the Red Hook community is being excluded from development plans.
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My 2,200sqft: Rug designer Amy Helfand shows us around her organic live/work home in Red Hook

Our ongoing series “My sqft” checks out the homes of 6sqft’s friends and fellow New Yorkers across all the boroughs. Our latest interior adventure brings us to the Red Hook rowhouse where rug designer Amy Helfand both works and lives with her family. Want to see your home featured here? Get in touch!

December 1, 2016

My 2,200sqft: Rug designer Amy Helfand shows us around her organic live/work home in Red Hook

By Dana Schulz

Artist Amy Helfand has been creating her own line of rugs for over a decade. The gorgeous pieces are hand-woven in Nepal as part of the GoodWeave program, but the design process takes place in Amy's charming Red Hook rowhouse, where she and her family also reside. As she explains, "At heart, I remain a collector: of images, forms and colors, as well as rocks, sticks, and other ephemera from the natural world," and it's this combination of geometry and organic inspiration that's seen throughout her home and studio. From a dining table centerpiece made of rocks to the chicken coop in the backyard, everything reflects Amy's unique vision. 6sqft recently toured the home and found out about Amy's favorite decor, artistic process, thoughts on the neighborhood, and how they rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy.
Take the tour this way

October 19, 2016

Work begins on Norman Foster’s Red Hook office project, will be the continent’s largest timber structure

By Dana Schulz

After revealing plans in June for Norman Foster's first commission in Brooklyn, Thor Equities now announces that work has commenced on Red Hoek Point, the 7.7-acre waterfront office campus. The press release also brings news that the project's two buildings, totaling 818,000 square feet, will become "the largest new heavy timber structure in North America."
More details ahead

September 22, 2016

Unleash your inner foodie at this year’s Taste of Red Hook

By Metro New York

Ten years ago, five or six new restaurants brought their food to a house in Brooklyn. Less than 100 people bought tickets for a tasting of the new businesses wares. More than $10,000 was raised for the Red Hook Initiative, a community nonprofit. It was a success. This year, tickets for the Taste of Red Hook are on […]

Events & Things To Do

September 15, 2016

For $1.6M this sweet Red Hook townhouse with a studio, garage and garden is a great condo alternative

By Michelle Cohen

While this compact and cute townhouse at 98 Pioneer Street on one of Red Hook's most Red Hook-y blocks may not be a grand mansion, at 2,148 square feet, it's bigger than most condos in its ($1.6 million) price range, and there's plenty of value packed in. First, a separate studio apartment with a garage and workshop, renovated and suitably adorable with garden access, is ready to be rented for extra income or used as a workspace or guest suite. There's a lovely landscaped garden, two additional balconies and plenty of thoughtful, modern renovations that you might find in newly-minted apartments with far less charm.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

September 13, 2016

AECOM wants to turn Red Hook into a 45,000-unit mega-development with new subway connection

By Dana Schulz

What do you get when you cross the new-waterfront nature of Battery Park City with the previous underutilization of Hudson Yards, and throw in a little Brooklyn? This massive proposal from big-time construction and engineering firm AECOM that would turn a huge section of the Red Hook waterfront into a residential mega-development with more than 12 towers, 45,000 units of housing (25 percent of which would be affordable), an extension of the 1 train, acres of parkland, and "waterfront-flood protections that would revitalize and protect the low-lying neighborhood from storms and future sea-level rise," as Crain's first reported. AECOM is presenting the idea today at the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation. They've already admitted that it "lacks key details" like hard costs, but they do estimate that one of their scenarios could generate $130 million in revenue for the city. The sites in question are the 80-acre Red Hook Container Terminal owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a similarly sized parcel along Columbia Street overlooking the Gowanus Bay that's owned by the city, and unused land at the Red Hook Houses. Under their plan, the sale or lease of land to developers, would fund the aforementioned infrastructure projects.
More details and renderings ahead

Architecture And Design

August 25, 2016

Owner of Red Hook waterfront terminal asks city to consider his site for Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar railyard

By Dana Schulz

Just yesterday, 6sqft took a look at reports that the Brooklyn-Queens streetcar will require a train yard/maintenance facility that will likely take up an entire city block and cost around $100 million (which is included in the $2.5 billion overall cost). Finding such a large swath of available real estate would be challenging, but a local industrialist wants to ease the burden by offering up his own property. Crain's tells us that John Quadrozzi Jr., owner of the GBX Gowanus Bay Terminal on the Red Hook waterfront, wants the city to consider his site to host the train yard. The Terminal, which was originally constructed in 1922 as the New York Port Authority Grain Terminal, is a 13-acre shipping depot with an additional 33 acres of underwater property that's used for concerts, film shoots, and commercial offices, and it's expected to be very close to the streetcar's route.
Find out more

Transit

August 10, 2016

Norman Foster’s First Brooklyn Project Dubbed Red Hoek Point, Gets New Rendering

By Dana Schulz

In June, 6sqft revealed renderings of Norman Foster's first commission in Brooklyn, the waterfront complex from Thor Equities planned for the former Revere Sugar Factory site in Red Hook. The sole rendering showed "his signature mix of contemporary panache (glassy construction with a cantilevering portion) and contextual thoughtfulness (low-scale, boxy structures in keeping with the industrial area)." Now, a second rendering comes to us via Curbed, which shows off the structure's "undulating penthouses and combined 3.6 acres of green roof." They've also noted that the project has an official website, leasing is underway, and it's been dubbed Red Hoek Point, a play on the area's Dutch name Roode Hoek from the 1600s.
Find out more

June 1, 2016

Norman Foster’s First Brooklyn Project Revealed, A 7.7-Acre Red Hook Office Development

By Dana Schulz

Back in 2005, the Joesph Sitt-led Thor Equities spent $40 million on a vacant, 7.7-acre parcel of land in Red Hook that juts 700 feet into the Erie Basin, between the Ikea parking lot and the Fairway. Preliminary visions for the former Revere Sugar Factory site included retail, office space, and residential buildings, but according to a press release sent out today by Thor, there will be no housing. Today's major announcement, however, is the architect selection: Norman Foster will helm the design of the new waterfront office complex, which will "include two heavy timber frame buildings totaling more than 600,000 square feet of creative office space, and 23,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space." Foster is a surprising choice for the project, as his commissions are typically flashy and in high-profile areas like Midtown or the Financial District. In fact, this will be his first building in Brooklyn. But the sole rendering shows his signature mix of contemporary panache (glassy construction with a cantilevering portion) and contextual thoughtfulness (low-scale, boxy structures in keeping with the industrial area).
More details ahead

April 25, 2016

Award-Winning Contemporary Townhouse on the Columbia Street Waterfront Asks $3M

By Emily Nonko

The Columbia Street Waterfront is a quiet and historic waterfront enclave, just west of Cobble Hill, that's filled with small businesses and lined with cobblestone streets. Despite it's old-time Brooklyn vibe, it's home to at least one very contemporary townhouse at 48 Tiffany Place. The single-family, three-story home underwent a reno in 2013 and recently won the Remodelista Considered Design Award for its unique and dramatic interior.
See more

Distinctive Homes

April 22, 2016

Artist Hopes to Raise $25K to Build a Pedestrian Bridge from Red Hook to Governors Island

By Michelle Cohen

From her back window on Columbia Street in Brooklyn, artist Nancy Nowacek could see Governors Island and Buttermilk Channel (the strait connecting Brooklyn to the island), and it seemed incredibly close. In fact, it's the equivalent of only about four city blocks away. So since 2012, Nowacek has been working on her vision of building Citizen Bridge over New York Harbor, a floating modular pedestrian bridge over the 1,400-foot span from Red Hook to Governor's Island. In what is currently planned as a one-day-only event, she sees Citizen Bridge as a completely new way to experience New York City harbor, rather than seeing it from the shore, from a bridge above, or from a boat. As noted by Mental Floss, Nowacek has turned to Kickstarter to raise money for a pilot phase. The project's goal of $25,000 would fund a proof-of-concept, which is the final phase before launching for real. So far, they've prototyped seven bridge designs in full-scale sections.
Find out more about this plan to walk on water

Architecture And Design

March 27, 2015

New Yorker Spotlight: Gil Shapiro of Urban Archaeology Re-Imagines Beautiful Old Things

By Michelle Cohen

Native New Yorker Gil Shapiro founded Urban Archaeology in the early 1970s, when the salvaging movement was just catching on. With a collector’s–and creator's–eye and an entrepreneurial spirit, he began re-imagining architectural remnants as treasured additions to the home environment. This month the company has been preparing for an auction taking place on March 27th and 28th, handled by Guernsey’s auction house, when nearly 1,000 of their long-treasured pieces of history will be sold to prepare for a move to a new location. First opened in Soho in 1978, the store's early customers–including Andy Warhol and other denizens of what was undisputedly the epicenter of the art world–adored the unique and time-treasured aspects of Shapiro's restored architectural salvage pieces, yet they would always find ways they wished they could customize their favorite items. Finding that he excelled at bringing a fresh perspective to pieces of historical and architectural importance, he started reproducing individual pieces as well as creating new lines of bath fixtures and lighting, many of which originated in places like the Plaza Hotel, New York’s Yale Club and the St. Regis Hotel.
Read our interview with Gil here

March 6, 2015

REVEALED: Massive Mixed-Use Development at Red Hook’s Revere Sugar Factory Site

By Ondel Hylton

The housing-design experts at Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP) have hashed out a feasibility study to redevelop the Revere Sugar Factory site in Red Hook with a 1.7 million-square-foot development to include more than 900 apartments, 250,000 square feet of retail, and 400,000 square feet of parking. The six-acre site at 280 Richards Street is owned by the Joesph Sitt-led, Thor Equities, who purchased the parcel back in 2005 to the tune of $40 million, according to the New York Observer. The vacant parcel juts out 700 feet into the Erie Basin, and sits between the Ikea parking lot and the Red Hook Stores building home to Fairway Supermarket (and Michelle Williams, of course). Though MAP's rendering date back to 2007, they have yet to be publicized, and we have the first look here.
More information on the project here

Living Breakwaters: An Award-Winning Project Brings ‘Oyster-tecture’ to the Shores of Staten Island

Image courtesy of SCAPE / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PLLC

January 28, 2015

Living Breakwaters: An Award-Winning Project Brings ‘Oyster-tecture’ to the Shores of Staten Island

By Michelle Cohen

We know what you're thinking: what is oyster-tecture, anyway? Just ask Kate Orff, landscape architect and the founding principal of SCAPE Studio. SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design office based in Manhattan and specializing in urban ecology, site design, and strategic planning. Kate is also an associate professor of architecture and urban design at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she founded the Urban Landscape Lab, which is dedicated to affecting positive social and ecological change in the joint built-natural environment. But the Living Breakwaters project may be the SCAPE team’s most impactful yet. The “Oyster-tecture” concept was developed as part of the MoMA Rising Currents Exhibition in 2010, with the idea of an oyster hatchery/eco-park in the Gowanus interior that would eventually generate a wave-attenuating reef in the Gowanus Bay. Describing the project as, “a process for generating new cultural and environmental narratives,” Kate envisioned a new “reef culture” functioning both as ecological sanctuary and public recreation space.
Find out more about what oysters and other creatures can do for NYC

January 28, 2015

A 12-Acre Mixed-Use Project Is Set to Wake Up Sleepy Red Hook

By Dana Schulz

If you've been to Red Hook lately chances are you were visiting the Fairway for lunch or taking the ferry to Ikea for a new $10 end table and some Swedish meatballs. But we soon may have many more reasons to visit the sleepy, industrial, square-mile Brooklyn neighborhood. The Red Hook Innovation District is a plan for a 12-acre, 1.2 million-square-foot, mixed-use project that would include offices, retail space, performance venues and a promenade. Last month, Los Angeles-based development firm Estate Four purchased the final property on the site. They now plan to roll out the $400 million project in phases over five years.
More details ahead

January 2, 2015

New Yorker Spotlight: Dominatrix Turned Restaurateur Erin Norris on Her Red Hook Restaurant, Grindhaus

By Diane Pham

A former construction manager, music publicist, Bergdorf's window dresser, dominatrix and dungeon owner, Erin Norris has lived enough lives to make all of us feel like a bunch of old fogies. The founder of one of Red Hook's newest eateries, Grindhaus, the sassy blonde is the embodiment of the resilience, edginess and charm that defines New York City. Back in 2008, Erin set out with the goal of bringing a sausage parlor and beer hall to Red Hook, but as was the case for many in her 'hood, Hurricane Sandy had other plans. After a long (and expensive) rebuilding effort, Erin finally opened the doors to Grindhaus in 2013. Things may not have gone as planned, but even so, she managed to create something that went far beyond her dreams. Today, Grindhaus is one of the city's best restaurants, luring in the most discerning of food critics, from the palates over at Zagat to New York Times restaurant critic Peter Wells (who, by the way, even had her dish him seconds). But beyond food, Erin is all about her waterfront neighborhood and the colorful characters that make it one of the most inimitable places in all of NYC. We recently caught up with Erin to get an insider's look.
Read our interview with Erin here

December 16, 2014

Brand New NYC Water Taxi Stop Makes It Easier to Explore Red Hook

By Diane Pham

Those who've been dying to check out up-and-coming Red Hook will now have a much easier, much more comfortable way of getting to the cozy, cute nabe. The New York Water Taxi Commission has just added a brand new stop that will ferry passengers to Van Brunt Street from Lower Manhattan, DUMBO and Midtown on the West Side. Locals residents have been championing for a stop for the last few years, citing that it would be a boon to business development in the area, particularly for those still hurting from the effects of Superstorm Sandy.
Find out more here

Transit

Neighborhood Revival: Brooklyn’s Columbia Street on a Comeback

Image: rutlo cc

November 8, 2014

Neighborhood Revival: Brooklyn’s Columbia Street on a Comeback

By Bonnie Clark

It’s not a shocker that some Brooklyn neighborhoods are outselling their Manhattan counterparts. What’s a bit of a surprise is that the Columbia Street Waterfront District, a quirky 22-block enclave wedged between Red Hook and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, is one of them. Until recently, Columbia Street was known as a far-flung and largely forgotten strip that fell victim to Robert Moses’s highway expansion project—the BQE—which, when built on a below-ground slice of Hicks Street in 1957, severed the area from the rest of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, breaking up what was then “South Brooklyn” into distinct neighborhoods.
More on Columbia Street's Comeback

Coffee Culture: Are Neighborhood Cafes the First Sign of Gentrification?

Photo: Cafe Grumpy in Greenpoint by Premshree Pillai cc

September 3, 2014

Coffee Culture: Are Neighborhood Cafes the First Sign of Gentrification?

By Michelle Cohen

From “coffices” to lab-like minimalist gourmet coffee meccas to cozy neighborhood hangouts, neighborhood cafes are a fine example of the essential “third place” mentioned in discussions of community dynamics: that place, neither work nor home, where regulars gather and everyone’s welcome. Along with yoga studios, art galleries, community gardens, vintage clothing shops, restaurants with pedigreed owners and adventurous menus and, some say, a change in the offerings on local grocery shelves, cafes are often the earliest sign of neighborhood change. The neighborhood cafe serves as a testing ground for community cohesiveness while adventurous entrepreneurs test the still-unfamiliar waters around them. Beyond the literal gesture of offering sustenance, cafes provide a place where you can actually see who your neighbors are and appreciate the fact that at least some of them are willing to make an investment locally.
Get a fleeting glimpse of old New York City cafe culture in the West Village, meet the future of coffee distribution in Red Hook.

June 25, 2014

Before DUMBO Had a Dumb Name: Eamon Loingsigh’s New Novel References the Neighborhood’s Seamy Past

By Andrew Cotto

There’s been a lot of novels set in New York City (guilty myself, two times). When done right, such work can serve as a portal to the past, when New York was a distinctly different place, one often defined by its era and often in direct contrast to the current conditions. In Eamon Loingsigh’s powerful new novel, Light of the Diddicoy, reference is made in the very first line to the area “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” Of course, any New Yorker worth his/her salted caramel custard from Shake Shack knows DUMBO, the Brooklyn nabe known for its pricey lofts and tony boutiques, its art galleries and swank eateries and a grassy park that sprawls along the water’s edge below the span of East River bridges. Lovely. The characters in Loingsigh’s novel aren’t so privileged, for they lived in DUMBO 100 years ago, long before any clunky acronyms, when the waterfront was a war zone, and the novel’s narrator, Liam Garrity, a displaced and desperate Irish immigrant, all of 14 years, fell in with a brutal gang as a matter of survival.
More about 'Light of the Diddicoy' here

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