The Grain Terminal

The Grain Terminal from Stephane Missier on Vimeo.


A little background:

On the far side of Red Hook Park’s soccer and baseball fields, locked-up behind a fence made of enormous concrete blocks, lays the last vestige of Red Hook's industrial grandeur: The New York Port Authority Grain Terminal.

This massive 429-foot long and 12-story high beige-colored fortress was built in 1922 for the purpose of washing, drying and storing grain from the Great Lakes, before the grain was loaded onto freight ships and delivered to breweries, distilleries and flour mills. Ultimately, the terminal was built to invigorate New York State’s Canal System and compete with railroad-owned stationary elevators.
Nevertheless, NYC’s uncompetitive labor costs and storage disputes forced the Port Authority to cease operations in 1965, after 40 years of under-use. Since then, the Grain Elevator has sat vacant and majestic on Gowanus Bay's waterfront, alongside the Erie Basin, dominating Red Hook's urban landscape.
City officials and engineers refer to the Grain Terminal as the Magnificent Mistake. However, Red Hook’s inhabitants affectionately term it one of two distinct names: “The Lady Finger,” due to its unique structure which consists of a series of 54 joined concrete semi-circular silos; or simply, the "Elevator.”