6. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Completely Separated Red Hook from the Rest of Brooklyn
Van Dyke Street Red Hook, Brooklyn. Image via Wikimedia CommonsÂ
By the time construction began on the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the neighborhood of Red Hook was already facing some serious economic difficulties. The main industry of the neighborhood, the manual labor of unloading and processing cargo, had increasingly been facilitated by machines, and so had reduced the need for physical bodies drastically. The industry had also largely been moved to larger plants in New Jersey that could afford the new equipment.
With the construction of the tunnel, Red Hook became physically separated from the rest of the borough, leading to a drastic rise in economic strife and crime. The neighborhood quickly became a mafia hotbed and the shadow of this criminal empire has long hung over the area. It has only been in recent years, with the increase of tech entrepreneurs, manufacturing companies, and public transit options like the NYC Ferry, that the neighborhood has been able to get back on its feet.