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Near Foot of DuPont Street
Posts & Stories
(2)
20 Commercial Street
Post
Pottery Beach, located where West Street met the East River, was named for a pottery factory that once stood on its site. A reporter from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle set out to meet the man who gave the beach its name on Christmas Eve of 1883. The account reads more like a fable than an actual news report, though it provides an account of life in Greenpoint before the waterfront was lined with heavy industry. Of the name "Pottery Beach," the man claimed: "there used to be an old pottery here, but it went to ruin after the owners had died and gone, and year after year...there was nothing left but a few old sticks and bricks which told the tale. Well, when I found out that the beach used to be used as a pottery, I concluded at once to call it pottery beach, an' by that name it has gone ever since." The so-called "owner" of the beach, as the newspaper christened him, decided to live on the beach after finding himself homeless. The man, who referred to himself in the third person only as "Jack," was in his past life a captain "of as pretty a ship as did ever sail the ocean," so it was fitting that the residence he built was a haphazardly fashioned cabin on top of a boat. In fact, the journalist for the Eagle was forced to take a row-boat out for an interview because the evening tides were high enough to partially submerge the sunken ship. Jack claimed that Greenpoint's sandy shore was a popular fishing spot, swimming hole, and place to watch yacht races. The former captain had lived on the beach for fifteen years, making a living selling provisions like ginger-snaps, lemonade, soda water, ginger beer, and cigarettes to young beach-goes "their mothers don't know it...they will not git a licking because Jack will not say anything about it." After bidding the man farewell, the reporter reflected on the fate of the area. He wrote: "\[it] will in a very short time be a thing of the past. Large manufactories are constantly springing up in Greenpoint, and all available waterfront will be needed...The property is convenient to all Greenpoint ferries and is within a few minutes of New York, and will doubtless in a short time be built upon by one of the large oil companies now located in Hunter's Point and Greenpoint."
Foot of DuPont Street
Post
These tugboats belong to the Reichert Towing Line, which was founded by Jacob Charles Reichert in 1906. Reichert, having worked on tugboats since the age of 16, was promoted to Captain by the time he was 21. He went on to assemble his own fleet of ten ships which formed the Reichert Towing Company. The tugs in Reichert's Line are docked at Dupont Street and participating in the Tugboat Strike of 1946, a two-week strike beginning on February 1st which aimed to bring all activity of the bustling harbor to a standstill. Strikers demanded higher wages, a reduction of working hours, and two weeks of vacation. Wages, kept at a standstill even after World War II, ranged from 67 cents an hour for deckhands and cooks to just over one-dollar an hour for captains and engineers. The strike affected every corner of the city. Mayor William O'Dwyer warned of brown-outs because tuggers wouldn't be bringing in coal. The subway system had to be kept unheated, and public schools were closed and converted to either hospitals or housing for those without fuel for heating. Lights for streetlamps were dimmed or shut off. The strike ended on February 14th, and thus the Mayor's forecast of mass chaos never came into fruition. Both members of the International Longshoremen's Association, the labor union group, and the Employers Wage Adjustment Committee, representing owners and operators of the tug companies, agreed to assemble a three-person panel to negotiate the union's demands and found a compromise.
Photos
(16)
Foot of DuPont Street
Strikers tugs Caption: "Strikers tugs tied up at foot of Dupont St., Greenpoint, as skippers and crews went ashore in harbor-wide walkout today. Seventy-five tugs were laid up in Brooklyn berths."
20 Commercial Street
\[Newtown Barge Terminal Playground] Aerial view of Newtown Barge Terminal Playground bounded by Commercial Street, Dupont Street, and West Street in Greenpoint, with portion of the East River and Manhattan skyline in background.
60 Freeman Street
Courier Packaging Co. at 220 West Street Courier Packaging Co. at 220 West Street at Freeman Street. View on Freeman Street.
280 FRANKLIN STREET
NuHart Plastics Factory
88 Green Street
Corner of Franklin Street and Green Street Former service station on the corner of Franklin Street and Green Street.
11 Clay Street
Brooklyn: Clay Street - Commercial Street Clay Street, at Commercial Street, viewing westward toward the latter and showing operations on a W. P. A. sewer project. On the north side of Commercial Street is a coal yard, on Newtown Creek. Views\_\_ and \_\_ are in the opposite (eastward) direction, the houses bearing numbers 11 to 19 Clay Street. Views 1,2,3,4: July 22, 1936 Works Progress Administration Five Boroughs Project
11 Clay Street
Brooklyn: Clay Street - Commercial Street Clay Street, at Commercial Street, viewing westward toward the latter and showing operations on a W. P. A. sewer project. On the north side of Commercial Street is a coal yard, on Newtown Creek. Views\_\_ and \_\_ are in the opposite (eastward) direction, the houses bearing numbers 11 to 19 Clay Street. Views 1,2,3,4: July 22, 1936 Works Progress Administration Five Boroughs Project
11 Clay Street
Brooklyn: Clay Street - Commercial Street Clay Street, at Commercial Street, viewing westward toward the latter and showing operations on a W. P. A. sewer project. On the north side of Commercial Street is a coal yard, on Newtown Creek. Views\_\_ and \_\_ are in the opposite (eastward) direction, the houses bearing numbers 11 to 19 Clay Street. Views 1,2,3,4: July 22, 1936 Works Progress Administration Five Boroughs Project
11 Clay Street
Brooklyn: Clay Street - Commercial Street Clay Street, at Commercial Street, viewing westward toward the latter and showing operations on a W. P. A. sewer project. On the north side of Commercial Street is a coal yard, on Newtown Creek. Views\_\_ and \_\_ are in the opposite (eastward) direction, the houses bearing numbers 11 to 19 Clay Street. Views 1,2,3,4: July 22, 1936 Works Progress Administration Five Boroughs Project
27 India Street
India Street & The East River View West on India Street, looking toward the East River.
Crosstown Depot
\[Crosstown Depot, Commercial Street at Box Street, Brooklyn, NY] Crosstown Depot, Commercial Street at Box Street, Brooklyn, NY. Northward view, from an elevation, of the depot buildings. Also showing tugboats on Newtown Creek, and multiple factories with chimneys, including a Jack Frost Sugar factory.
109 Huron Street
House at 109 Huron Street Single family house at 109 Huron Street, between Franklin Street and Manhattan Avenue.
Havemeyer Sugar Works
The Havemeyer Sugar Works, Manhattan Avenue at Commercial Street and Pink Street, on Newtown Creek, Brooklyn, New York, April 10, 1917. Photographed for Joseph P. Day.
52 Clay Street
Charred house as wedding backdrop Bride accompanied by her father in tuxedo emerging from wooden building to well-wishers throwing rice. Caption: "Charred house as wedding backdrop: Andrew Kuriplach and his daughter Jean leave the charred remains of a house at 52 Clay St., scene of recent five-alarm fire at a Greenpoint warehouse. They are headed for St. Cyril Methodius R. C. Church, where Miss Kuriplach married Sgt. Robert Dolney...."".
Java Street Pier
Abandoned Pier - Java Street Abandoned pier on the East River at Java Street (Demolished in 2000).
Java Street Pier
Abandoned Pier - Java Street Abandoned pier on the East River at Java Street (Demolished in 2000).
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