The Tideshift Project

Sixty-five years ago, the first commercially successful containerized shipment left Port Newark for Houston beginning a transition that would reshape ports and economies worldwide. Sunday, October 3, 2021 at 2pm The Waterfront Museum will launch a last ditch effort to collect and preserve the stories of the people who worked through that transition.

The Tideshift Project is a series of three live, public oral history collecting events open to the public, in which the Waterfront Museum will collect stories from waterfront freight workers and their descendants. These include pre-World War II barge families, former longshoremen, and today’s final mile shipping workers. Those workers and their descendants will gather with a live, in person and virtual audience aboard the Waterfront Museum’s 1914 wooden lighterage barge, Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79, moored at 290 Conover St in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The waterfront workers will recall a harbor few of us know, the tools and practices that made that waterfront work, and how that work shaped daily life.

The first event in this three-part series will take place on Sunday, October 3, 2021 at 2pm and will feature people with experience as deckhands, errand boys, cargo inspectors, and more during the years of transition from break bulk shipping to containerization that radically altered Red Hook, New York Harbor, and the world economy.

These events are free and open to the public, either in person or virtually. Workers currently involved in waterfront shipping or in final mile distribution are strongly encouraged to attend and add their own stories to the collection. Donations to help keep the Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79 afloat are welcome.

The Tideshift Project was created by Stefan D-W on behalf of The Waterfront Museum and funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.