In Red Hook, New York’s creative fringe is building a design district by the water

While most New Yorkers know Red Hook by name, many have never set foot in the tiny, water-hugging Brooklyn neighbourhood. Occupying the borough’s western extreme, the former shipping hub feels isolated from the rest of the city – and it’s a schlep to the nearest subway station. This has helped to give it the atmosphere of a New England fishing town suspended in time.

That outlier status has made it a magnet for creatives. First to arrive was the art crowd but Red Hook has also attracted members of the city’s design community. New York can feel increasingly sanitised but its quirkier side lives on in Red Hook. Louis Shannon, the founder of Entrance gallery, describes himself as “a grateful member of the band of weirdos” who call this place home.

Entrance exhibits large-scale sculptures in an outdoor space and also has a focus on design. When Monocle visits, the gallery is showcasing the work of New York-based Japanese-American sculptor Mariko Makino. Alongside such exhibitions, it tends an on-site vegetable garden and hosts film screenings, dance performances and motor club meets.

Architect Wes Rozen and his wife, painter and furniture-maker Natalie Shook, are also key figures in Red Hook’s design scene. In 2013, when Shook was looking to move out of Williamsburg, she came across a Red Hook warehouse that was filled with plumbing supplies. She immediately signed on the dotted line. Today the workshop is divided into two businesses: Rozen’s practice, which focuses on everything from interior design to houses, and Shook’s studio. Woodwork, she says, has allowed her to build a community.

Shook operates a makers’ co-operative called Piscina Studio, where about 30 creatives focus on woodwork but also ceramics and metalwork. We meet Michael Haynes, who’s making feet for a dresser in cherrywood. Another woodworker, Luke Malaney, shows us a coffee table that he’s fashioning for his home. “I feel lucky to have found this place,” he says. “It’s more than a dusty workshop.”

Piscina’s newest addition opened on Red Hook’s Van Brunt Street in 2022: a shop selling design pieces, about 80 per cent of which are produced at the workshop. A gallery was added this year. Piscina’s influence doesn’t stop there. Designer Devin Wilde, who started in ceramics, chose Red Hook when he moved back to New York five years ago because he loved the “grungy seaside town” feel. Before he found his artist loft, he worked from Shook’s workshop. Piscina has also collaborated with Keti Chichinadze, the founder of Jamieri, which is next door but in the process of looking for a new space. Originally from Georgia, Chichinadze specialises in contemporary design and collectable furniture from her homeland. Before finding this spot, she had never been to Red Hook. “This is the best place in New York for making,” she says.

Tying together all of the strands is Ross Belfer, a communications professional who lives in an apartment overlooking the water. He takes us around the nearby streets, stopping in on Heron Preston, a streetwear titan who has shown in Paris and Milan. Preston recently made a set of chairs from reclaimed street signs. It’s the sort of work that has prompted Belfer to establish the Red Hook Design District. “We want to protect and preserve the fabric of the neighbourhood and be a catalyst for undiscovered talent,” he says.

Red Hook won’t stay suspended in time forever. A film studio is under construction and more people are discovering it during weekends. But once Monday comes around, the neighbourhood goes back to doing what it does best: being a tight-knit community of creatives. “I’m doubling down on here,” says Belfer. “It’s more interesting to be where everybody else isn’t.”