Tour Info
Location: Brooklyn
Duration: 3 Hours
Tour Includes: Food at Hometown BBQ, Steve’s Key Lime Pie, and Raaka chocolate tasting + Wine tasting & Distillery tasting. Price includes all food & alcohol per person!
Tour Availability: 6 days a week (Hometown BBQ is closed Mondays). We STRONGLY recommend to start at Noon to avoid a wait time at Hometown BBQ.
Red Hook is located on a peninsula in southwestern Brooklyn and is known for its diverse community, rich history, and unique geography. It’s one of the only places in Brooklyn with a clear view of the Statue of Liberty. In fact, Red Hook offers the only frontal views of the Statue of Liberty in NYC.
Red Hook was one of the first areas of Brooklyn to be settled. The Dutch established the village of Red Hook (Roode Hoek) in 1636. It was named Red Hook for the red clay soil as well as the hook shape of its geographical footprint. In the 1850s, Red Hook was one of the busiest ports in the country. Red Hook is home to the largest concentration of Civil War-era warehouses in the city.
Much of the reason Red Hook has been left unchanged is because of its relatively isolated location. Over the last two decades, new residents have been drawn to the neighborhood because of the old world charm and incredible water views.
The Official Guide to NYC says, “The occasional cobblestone street and an industrial vibe (a holdover from when it was one of the country’s busiest shipping centers). It’s the big city infused with a touch of New England, and its residents include artisans, musicians, gardeners and a host of other creative and entrepreneurial types.”
Tour includes: Hometown BBQ (NYC’s #1 food critic rated BBQ joint), Red Hook Winery, Steve’s Key Lime Pies, Raaka Chocolate, Van Brunt Stillhouse. Option to upgrade to enough food for lunch with a stop to Defonte’s Sandwich stop for their famous giant hero sandwiches!
Plus arrive or depart by ferry (the “IKEA” ferry) for even better views of Lady Liberty and Governor’s Island.
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- Tours and tastings of winery, distillery, chocolate factory, art galleries,
- Guided history tour with fascinating anecdotes by your guide
- Incredible views of the city!
- Insider access to tour stops for behind the scenes action
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H.P. Lovecraft’s short Story “The Horror at Red Hook” (1925), Budd Shulberg’s screenplay “On the Waterfront” and Arthur Miller’s play “A View from the Bridge” all take place in Red Hook. Red Hook has always been a little bit of a rough neighborhood. Al Capone got his start in Red Hook as well as the wound that led to his nickname, Scarface.
At its peak in 1950, 21,000 longshoremen lived in the neighborhood, many of them in row houses second only in age to those in Brooklyn Heights. Most people lived in the Red Hook Houses, built in 1936, which were originally built for families of dock workers and are one of the first and largest Federal Housing projects in the country.
In 1990, the Red Hook population was under 11,000 people with the average household income under $10,000. Unemployment was estimated at 30 percent among men and 25 percent among women. For comparison, most NYC neighborhoods have between 50,000-200,000 people.
Two other major events influenced Red Hook’s fate: the 1946 opening of the Gowanus Expressway and the 1950 opening of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel cut the neighborhood off from the rest of the borough.
Red Hook has since bounced back but is certainly one of the off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Much of the reason Red Hook has been left unchanged is because of its relatively isolated location. Over the last two decades new residents have been drawn to the neighborhood because of the low rents, as well as the old world charm and incredible views. Lady liberty, lower Manhattan and gorgeous sunsets. It’s worth noting that the rents are no longer “low”!
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy took quite a toll on this low lying area as the waters of the East River and Upper New York Bay destroyed many homes, businesses and other buildings.
