Red Hook's Revitalization Could Soon Take Sail

Sunset sails could follow Fairway Market and Ikea as the next big Red Hook attraction.

A nonprofit waterfront group, PortSide New York, is looking to launch a free boating program off the coast of Valentino Park, a few blocks south of Brooklyn's Dynamic Maritime Marketplace, where the city is filling the old piers with restaurants, conference centers, hotels, and cruise ship piers.

The small el-shaped spit of land flanked by Victorian-era brick warehouses would serve as the launching area for a small fleet of sailboats that would offer free and low-cost sails throughout the summer.

"It's a small bit of land with a big ‘oh wow' view," the director of PortSide New York, Carolina Salguero, said. The park's gravel beach offers views of the Statue of Liberty in the foreground with the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge's arches and the ports of Bayonne, N.J., in the background.

"We're a coastal community here, and many people don't recognize that," the district manager of Community Board 6, Craig Hammerman, said in throwing his support behind the initiative. "It's becoming increasingly more important in terms of transportation, economic development, and recreation to view boating as an asset, not a liability."

In a neighborhood ravaged by unemployment due to the loss of blue-collar maritime jobs over the years, Ms. Salguero's hope is that a free boating program would bring more New Yorkers to Red Hook and spark interest in the waterfront among some of the neighborhood's low-income youth.

"Boating is a way to connect with the natural environment that New Yorkers tend to lose touch with," Ms. Salguero said.

Creating a free sailing program in a disadvantaged neighborhood on a shoestring budget means rounding up free sailboats, Ms. Salguero said. PortSide plans to scrounge up boats in good condition from area marinas looking to donate vessels that are not being used.

The city's Parks Department, which would have to approve the sailing plan, has so far been supportive of the initiative. "We encourage water-related recreation, and we'd be happy to reopen discussions with them," a spokesman for the Parks Department, Warner Johnston, said.