![]() The press referred to the area with terms such as “wasteland,” “auto morgue,” and “hobo jungle.” Area of city-owned land suggested for public housing by Louis Pink. With the onset of the Great Depression, it also became a Hooverville, similar to those popping up all over the country at that time, with about 400 squatters in residence. Over the years, it had become the site of an unofficial dumping ground, referred to by locals as Tin Can Mountain. The parcel Pink was referring to had been purchased by the city between 19 with the plans of creating a railroad depot that would act as a linkage between the various ports of manufacture and storage from Bay Ridge to the Wallabout.īy 1933, the land wasn’t really vacant. In February of 1933, Pink wrote an op-ed piece for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, pointing out that there was a 40-acre tract of land in the southern part of Red Hook that could easily be developed into a modern public housing neighborhood. But if it had, Red Hook would look much different today. Pink, a member of the New York State Housing Board. However, even before NYCHA came into existence, Red Hook had been the suggested location for a public housing community proposed by Louis H. This was one of the earliest public housing projects in New York City, the New York City Housing Authority having only been established in 1934. Ground broke for the construction of the Red Hook Houses on July 17, 1938, and the first residents moved into their new homes less than one year later. Headline and image from Pink’s proposal, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 26, 1933 But Red Hook has always been susceptible to change, and just as decisions and events are now influencing what the neighborhood will look like in the future, those that shaped it as we know it today were just as flexible and malleable, and anything but predetermined. It probably feels this way because we have become accustomed to the landscape around us, the neighborhood that we know and love. With rents increasing and condos popping up like mushrooms all around us, Red Hook seems to be changing more and more rapidly.
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