Wheelhouse & Engine Room NY Harbor 1930

Found this video, really great footage. I know some of you will enjoy this, I certainly did!

YouTube

Also check out others from this same channel.

Excellent!!!!

I agree: EXCELLENT !!!! I really enjoyed seeing this film. The film was likely shot aboard one of the many ferries which plied NY Harbor years ago. Into the 1960's, there were many steam powered ferries still working in NY Harbor. Aside from the big Staten Island Ferry vessels, there were smaller ferries on the runs from "the Battery" (the tip of Manhattan Island, where a battery of cannon once were situated to defend NYC). These smaller ferries ran to Governor's Island. There were mid-sized ferries, some coal fired to the end, run by the railroads from Hoboken, NJ to lower Manhattan. More of the "vest pocket" ferries were on runs to Riker's Island (prison), and some of the other city-owned facilities on islands.

The fact the captain and wheelsman (mate ?) were in formal uniforms suggests one of the ferries. Tugboats were a bit less formal. Of note is the use of whistle signals. If you listen, when the skipper blows the whistle, it is not just to let other vessels know his vessel is nearby. It is a signal as to which side he is going to pass on. I can hear the other vessel's answering whistle signal. No radio was used.

NY Harbor was a very busy place into the 1960's. There were quite a few ferries on regular runs, and there was always tug and barge traffic. Add to this the merchant and passenger ships. Some were at anchor, some were underway at any given time. The tugs and barges varied: there used to be a lot of railroad "car floats" being moved around the harbor. These car float barges were usually made up "on the hip" or along the sides of the tugs. There were also barges in tow using towlines or hawsers. Aside from all of this, there were a number of self propelled "lighters", barges which could take a cargo off a ship or load it aboard, or furnish fuel or water.
Then, there were crane and derrick barges, pile driver scows, and loads of coal barges. In the days when this film was made, there were none of the integrated tug-and-barge combinations (barges with a notch for the tug's bow). The result was the barge tows had to be made up using various arrangements, none of which were as manueverable as the integrated tug and barge combinations now in use.

Steam engines were ideal for ferry service in any busy harbor. A steam engine, as shown in the youtube, was very nearly instantly manueverable. A good marine engineer could take the engine from ahead (forward) to astern (reverse) direction without shutting off steam. The steam engine had full power in either direction and could deliver it almost instantly. In a busy harbor, using the engines to check the speed and help with tight turns happened many times in a short crossing.

The preferred steam engine used in NY Harbor ferries was the "double compound". This engine had two high pressure cylinders and two low pressure cylinders. It was not quite as economical on steam consumption as a triple expansion engine. It was used because it had a lot more horsepower for a given footprint, and gave excellent manueverability.

I was in the engine rooms of some of the old steam ferries when I was a kid in the 1960's, knowing even then that their days were numbered. There was a lot of conservative thinking in place amongst the fleet operations people when it came time to order new ferries. As a result, steam hung on a lot longer on the NY harbor ferries. The last steam ferries ordered for NY Harbor were the "Private Joseph Merrill" class, for the Staten Island runs. These were ordered with Skinner Unaflow steam engines, around 1952. When the next class of ferries was to be ordered in the 1960's, the old heads were still wanting steam power. The word was salesmen from General Motors/EMD division spent about $100,000.00 (never mind how or whose pockets got lined with it). The result was the class of ferries that came out in the early 1960's had EMD diesel-electric propulsion. Meanwhile, the "Gold Star Mother" class of S.I. ferries, built in 1938, were still in steam. These ferries had 4000 HP double compound steam engines, and B & W oil fired watertube boilers. The "Gold Star Mother" class of S.I. Ferries were withdrawn from service about 1974-75. The Unaflow powered ferries hung on into maybe the early 1980's. By that time, all the other steam powered ferries and tugs were long gone from NY Harbor.

The harbor used to be alive with the sounds of steam whistles. The big S.I. Ferries had large 4-note chime steam whistles (Hancock whistles) with a nice tone. The smaller vessels all carried chime steam whistles. The tugs had two whistles: a big chime steam whistle, for fog or signals when passing other vessels; and a single-note maneuvering whistle. This was a smaller whistle, maybe 1/2" or 3/4" pipe connection, and had a single note, usually higher pitched. It was blown by tug skippers when maneuvering for ship docking to let the skipper or pilot on the ship know what maneuver was required.

I enjoyed seeing the engine room, and it brought back a lot of memories. The engineer was obviously quite skilled and "one with his engine" when it came to maneuvering or "answering" the engine telegraph. On the S.I. Ferries, they had the usual engine telegraph, as well as a "cowbell" and "jingle bell". If the telegraph failed, the bell pulls were used to signal the engineer. Even with the telegraph operational, the "jingle bell" was used to tell the engineer to "increase turns" at a given telegraph order.

The engine has the Stephenson's valve gear, with what is known as the "double bar motion". The engine has a "steam reverser", similar to that used on steam locomotives to "throw the links" of the valve gear. It can be seen in how smoothly the links move, and the fact the engineer makes a relatively small and easy move of the reverser lever and the links play catch-up to it.

I also enjoyed seeing the oiler at work, feeling for hot brasses. I was taught to do this by marine engineers up on the Great Lakes in the 1970s, and it meant feeling moving parts of the engine with my hand. There is a way to do it, and the old engineers used to kid around about it being like feeding a horse out of your hand. Do it wrong and the horse, while not intending to, will chomp your fingers. When we have the steam engine running at Hanford Mills, I will feel the big-end brass and eccentric strap with the back of my hand as those parts come by. Some people really freak out when they've seen me feeling for hot brasses (any bearing, even if it is babbitted was referred to as a "brass" on a steam engine). I tell them this is how the marine engineers and oilers did it, and how I was taught.

As an example of how rapidly the times were changing for the NY Harbor Ferries: in the 1970's, a US Coast Guard Marine Inspection officer came aboard one of the Hoboken ferries. These vessels were fired with anthracite coal, since that is what the railroads hauled into the Port of NY. The marine inspection officer met the ferry's chief engineer on the car deck and asked to see the emergency fuel cutoff. This is normally located in the casing around the uptakes from the engines in the center of the car deck on oil-fueled vessels. The chief engineer, knowing he had a young officer on his hands, said: "this vessel never had an emergency fuel cutoff" and left it at that. There were coaling hatches in the cardeck and some stray lumps of coal were on the cardeck. The officer started in about how having an emergency fuel cutoff was a requirement, and how the vessel would have to be taken out of service until one was installed. The old chief engineer just pointed at the stray lumps of coal on the car deck plating and asked what kind of emergency fuel cutoff would be needed for that kind of fuel. The inspection officer was young and had no knowledge of, nor had he ever even seen, a coal fired vessel.

At this point in time, steam powered vessels are so few and far between that the US Coast Guard Marine Inspection Office for the Port of NY does not even have anyone on staff to do inspections on steam vessels. The word is the Coast Guard now subcontracts inspection of steam vessels to consulting engineers. Even the ferries designed to carry vehicles (hence the term, car deck) are gone. The more recent classes of Staten Island Ferries are built to take just pedestrian traffic, in a move to keep vehicle traffic out of lower Manhattan. The newer vessels use Voith cycloidal propellor systems, with bridge control, and diesel power. The days of ferries with steam engines and beautiful sounding whistles are a memory for me and unknown to at least two generations of people. Thanks again for posting this youtube.

Those who are of a mind should read "The Sand Pebbles" by Richard McKenna. A movie was made starring Steve McQueen which barely does it justice.

Those of a steam machinist frame of mind will appreciate the laborious rebuilding of the steam engine.

"Ho-Mang" = Holman, the main character.

Joe in NH

What kind of transmission do large ships have to go from forward to reverse under full power?

In reference to Joe Michaels Post above: I was stationed on Governors Island in the late 1950s. The Army had two diesel electric and one steam ferry running at the time. When the steam ferry was working, I would even wait an extra 15 minutes for it to come back to ride. I loved the pounding of the reciprocating engine, the steam whistle, and the creaking and swaying of the whole structure.

They kept a tight schedule and the ferry would nose into the berth and go to full reverse on the engine, everything shook and vibrated.

John A. Lynch (ferryboat) - Wikipedia

The end: Major General William H. Hart Ferry | The Maj. Gen. William … | Flickr

Paul

I spent a few days in Istanbul in early January, 1972. I enjoyed riding on the fleet of steam ferries that serviced routes along and across the Bosphorus strait. I made a point of taking one across to the Asian side so that I could set foot in Asia my first time. This was before the tunnel or any bridges were open, so there were a lot of ferries and the fare was really cheap. The weather was relatively warm and sunny every day I was there, though there was a pervading odor of coal smoke in the air.

Ferries in Istanbul - Wikipedia

That NYC boat navigating in dense fog through heavy river traffic was kind of terrifying. That guy with the four stripes on his sleeves earned whatever they paid him, and more. He never seemed to forget when to pull the whistle lanyard while still trying to see through the fog and figure out where those other whistles and bells were, with respect to his own course.

I looked, and saw that there was a collision between two ferries on a foggy afternoon in January, 1862.

The Weather Fog.; FERRY-BOAT COLLISION. - The New York Times

And you don't need fog to have a wreck. Loss of steering control will do the job in any weather, even with an official harbor pilot in command. Just remember, stopping the screw or ordering full astern does not instantly stop a ship. The bigger the ship, the more inertia trying to keep it moving ahead. So there was a really bad wreck in the Narrows in 1973

Disaster History: On this day: 1973 - Ship Collision/Fire NY Harbor

I wonder if the current diesel-powered ferries use air horn signals these days, or if everything is radar, GPS and radio.

Larry

PegroPro:

Steam engines never had any transmission to change direction. The direction in which an engine's crankshaft rotates is determined by the "lead" of the eccentric which moves the valve controlling admission and exhaust of steam from the cylinder. In the youtube, you will see the engine stop for an instant, and a set of links slides cross=wise, then the engine re-starts in the opposite direction. We refer to the mechanism which controls the "timing" of a steam engines valve(s) as "valve gear" or "valve motion". Marine steam engines in the USA commonly used what is known as "Stephenson's Link Motion". In Stephenson's Link Motion, there are two (2) eccentrics to work the steam valve on each cylinder. Each eccentric is setup with lead (advance before dead center on the piston at each end of the stroke) to cause the engine to rotate in a particular direction. One eccentric is the "ahead" (forward) and the other is the "astern" (reverse). No gears, no shifting, no clutches.

A steam servomechanism was used to "throw the links" on engines of the size of the one in this film. The steam ram moved the links to wherever the engineer set the control lever. Not only could the engineer control the direction in which the engine was turning, but could also control the "cutoff" point- the point during each stroke at which the admission of steam stopped or was "cut off". Once cutoff occurred, the steam within the cylinder had to continue pushing the piston by it own expansion. An engine might be started with what is known as a "late" cutoff, using lots of steam and maintaining almost full boiler pressure in the cylinder thru much of the stroke. Once the engine came up to speed and the vessel settled into its cruising speed, the engineer could "hook up" the engine. Hooking up was an old term for adjusting the cutoff so it occurred earlier in the stroke. Less steam (and less fuel) were used, and the steam was used more expansively in the cylinders.

On a harbor ferry, chances are the engineers did not have much chance of "hooking up", and had the engines running at a fairly late cutoff. A good marine engineer could watch his engine and when the high pressure (HP) crank was at or nearing dead center, he could reverse the engine's rotation without closing the throttle.
This was often done in emergencies where a vessel had to have its speed checked in a hurry to avoid a collision.

As Paul notes, when a recip marine steam engine went from "ahead" to "full astern", the whole vessel shook. I've been in engine rooms when a ship was manuevering. Going to full astern from even slow ahead would cause the whole engine room to shake, and you'd hear the glasses in each pressure gauge rattling and see stuff on the watch desk start moving around if you were at the watch desk of manuevering station. The engine would "knuckle down" and give it all she had in her.

The old expression on the steam vessels, particularly the ferries in NY Harbor was: "full ahead with a jingle". The jingle meant the "jingle bell" was pulled, which was a signal beyond the normal engine telegraph to give all the turns the engine could make.

I was down in the engine room of the "Hart" when she was at South Street Seaport. South Street Seaport is a place which shall live in infamy. They were given a number of working steam vessels, including the steam tug "Matilda" which arrived under her own steam, the last steam lighter in NY Harbor (the "Aqua"), the "General Hart", and a Hudson River Dayline paddle steamer. South Street Seaport had their minds on sailing vessels and paid no attention nor put much, if any, effort into the steam vessels. Every last one of them either sank at the pier (Matilda, twice) or wound up as a derelict or scrap.

Of the steam vessels donated to the South Street Seaport Museum, the steam tug "Matilda" is the only survivor. She was set on blocks on dry land at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston, NY. The odds of "Matilda" ever going back into the water, let alone being put back in steam, are non-existant. To my knowledge, just about all the steam ferries in NY Harbor were eventually scrapped. Some wound up as floating restaurants for some years, but eventually, either the waterfront realestate was too valuable or the old hulls needed too much maintenance (drydocking) to remain afloat.

In about 1962-64, Conrad Milster and a business partner named Miles Rosenthal bought one of the Beacon-Newburgh (NY) ferries named "Orange", for Orange County, NY. "Orange" was a small coal fired ferry and her USCG certificate was still in force when Milster and Rosenthal bought her. I believe they paid about 1200 bucks. They got a crew of licensed people pulled together and took the Orange downriver under her own steam with coal that was left in her bunkers. The plan was to keep the "Orange" as a working historic vessel. They tied her up at a pier in (or near) Jersey City, NJ. Despite their best efforts to secure the vessel by means of locks, chains, welding companionway doors shut to the engine room, etc, the Orange was severely vandalized. Anything that was either a nautical antique like the ship's wheels, engine telegraphs, clocks, etc all were stolen. The vandals had a field day in the engine room, taking all the brass or bronze fittings, bearings, copper buss bars on the old live front switchgear, and anything else they could sell for scrap.

Milster & Rosenthal apparently had a pretty good idea that crooked cops were either turning a blind eye to the thefts and destruction, or were in on it. They removed some of the gratings in the engine room, figuring it was pitch dark and anyone going into the engine room had no business being there. Sure enough, a thief took a bad fall thru the opening where the grating was removed. There was hell to pay, as the thief was possibly a Jersey City cop or connected to them in some way. I think that Rosenthal had to pay the thief's medical bills to make the matter go away. The end result was Milster and Rosenthal had to get a tugboat to tow the "Orange" to the old layup basin somewhere on the NJ shore behind the Statue of Liberty. There, the rest of the scrapping of anything saleable continued until the Orange was a floating hulk.

Conrad Milster kept some of the old "Orange" in the Pratt boiler room, parts of the engine's valve gear and some of the signage that had been on the ferry. He also had a kind of engine room telegraph which had "Beacon" and "Newburgh" on it. This was to tell the engineer which direction the ferry would be going, since the engineer was "down below" and might otherwise not know which way was "ahead" or "astern". A ferry like the "Orange" was double ended, so there really was no formal bow or stern, and no "ahead" nor "astern" in the normal sense. Ahead or astern on the engine was determined by which end of the ferry was pointed at the destination.

Years ago, on the Great Lakes, people who were being examined to ship on the ore boats, whether as deck or engine department, were sometimes asked a trick question by US Coast Guard marine inspection officers. The question, which threw a lot of people a real curve was: "On a double ended ferry boat, which end is considered the
bow ? The answer is: "Find number 1 lifeboat. It will be on the starboard side of the bow. Number 1 lifeboat will determine where the bow is on a double ended ferry".

If you go in the wheelhouse of a double ended ferry, the engine telegraphs will have the usual "ahead" and "astern" positions. Down in the engine room, it is a whole other matter, since "ahead" in one direction of travel is "astern, and if ferry is crossing in the opposite direction, what was "ahead" is now "astern". Conrad had the old telegraph that showed whether the "Orange" was headed from Beacon over to Newburgh (approximately west bound) or from Newburgh to Beacon (approximately east bound).

Here in the USA, we have done a very good job of letting our historic steam vessels fall into decay or simply go for scrap. In Europe and England as well as Australia and New Zealand, quite a few larger steam vessels are preserved and actually in steam on a regular basis. With the exception of a Liberty Ship on each coast, we really do not have much in the way of preserved/active steam vessels here in the USA. I've been involved with the efforts to bring the steamer "Columbia" (ex Bob-Lo island excursion steamer/ferry) to Kingston, NY. The "Columbia" may well be the last of the real classic "high stack" excursion steamers and has a good chance of being returned to steam. It's a question of money, running into the millions of dollars. The people who are running the foundation to restore and operate the "Columbia" are people who have worked on tugs and know the real picture. The result is they do not spend money they do not have. Columbia was drydocked in Toledo, OH and her hull was surveyed and repaired. Her hull is sound following the repairs in Toledo, which included replacing some of the plates and some partial replacement of some of the frames. Columbia was towed to a berth in Buffalo, NY. I was asked to take a look at her boilers (original ca 1901, 2 furnace Scotch Marine boilers). I had the last ultrasonic thickness readings on the boilers and ran the calculations. Boilers are in surprisingly good condition, needing new tubes and new uptake sheet metal (water down the stack took its toll). Her machinery (original triple expansion main engine and most of the original auxiliary machinery) is also in excellent condition.

The problem lies with Columbia's superstructure. A kind of "exoskeletal" framing using steel was used to support a wood superstructure. The wood superstructure is mostly rotted out beyond any reasonable repair. Columbia is too wide (she has a main deck which projects quite a distance off each side of the hull) to come down thru the NYS Barge Canal. She will have to come to the Port of NY and up the Hudson River to Kingston via the Welland Canal and then the St Lawrence Seaway, then an ocean tow down the coast. Towing the old vessel with the rotted superstructure on the open sea is not going to happen. She will have to be loaded onto a semi-submersible barge for transit to Kingston, NY. Naval Architects are reviewing the stability of the Columbia is she were loaded on a semi-submersible barge, as to how heavy a sea she could safely withstand. The big issue is the old rotted wood superstructure. The obvious thing is to remove it, but if the old superstructure is removed in its entirety, then the historic vessel status is lost and the replacement superstructure has to conform to current regulations. Meanwhile, until funds are raised for the semi-submersible barge and tow to the Port of NY, Columbia sits at her berth in Buffalo.

My own hope is that Columbia is returned to steam while Conrad Milster is still amongst the living so he can take a hand in the startup and running of the vessel.

Great footage - thank you Sandiapaul. What a performance by the guys on the bridge navigating just by compass and foghorn. Nice scenes from the engine room showing how swift a steam engine can be reversed. The whole show topped off by the oiler leaning in between the conrods to check bearing temperatures and also the sound of the motor launch hit and miss engine passing ahead.

Lars

Thanks for the very informative steam engine lesson Joe. I always learn something interesting from these posts. I was trying to figure out why the sliding links were doing what they were doing, (not really knowing what they were) and you explained it before I could pose the question.The oiler sure needed to be on top of his game while checking the brasses. And thank you Paul for the original post. Jim

crooked cops in Jersey City, WHY NO! that simply couldn't be...

what was the steam tug tied up at pier 40 about 8 or 9 years ago, had meant to go see if I could give a hand on that project but it never quite worked out..

(OK, maybe it was 12-15 years ago..)

Thanks Joe, when I posted this I has hoping you would reply! I've been visiting(and lived in Brooklyn for a time) NYC since 1969. Every once in a while I would hear what I was sure was a steam whistle on the water, but was sure that even by the 1970's steam was gone. Interesting know it lasted until the 80's.

CyanideKid:

I do not know what steam tug you may have seen at Pier 40. There is one former steam tug, the "Pegasus", which is still in service in NY Harbor. "Pegasus" was an oil company tug (Socony or Mobil, hence the "Pegasus" name). She was dieselized in the 50's, but keeps the lines of a steam tug. Her owner is a lady tug skipper (I do not remember her name). Her owner/skipper used "Pegasus" for outreach to children to teach them about the harbor and tugs. Another vessel tied up on the west side of Manhattan is the former US Coast Guard buoy tender, "Lilac". The "Lilac" was one of, if not, the last USCG vessel to be recip steam powered. "Lilac" is a twin screw vessel, so has two recip steam engines in her. She is intact, and the plan is to someday return her to steam. Whether this will ever happen remains to be seen. Volunteers work on her preservation.

Sandiapaul:

You quite likely heard steam whistles on the Staten Island Ferry vessels that were in service as "reserve" boats. As late as 1974-5, the "Gold Star Mother" class of ferries (steam, double compound 4000 HP engines), and the "Merrill" class (steam, Skinner Unaflow powered) were in service into the very early 1980's. In addition, there was the floating steam derrick "Century", and the NYS Department of Docks had a scow with a steam pile driver on it. Aside from the real steam powered stuff, there were a number of floating cranes and derricks which had been converted from steam and run on compressed air. Weeks Marine had a number of these rigs, and they had their steam whistles, albeit blown on compressed air.

As for the skipper of the ferry in the film blowing the whistle as required, he was blowing signals to other vessels as to which side they were going to pass each other on. The other vessels were answering with their whistles. There is the "one whistle side" and the "two whistle side" which signal a "Port-to-port", or "Starb'd to starb'd" passing. In the case of the ferry, the whistle signal was the handiest thing going. Imagine trying to keep up with radio'd conversations about passing and manuevering. When tugs were doing large ship dockings, there might be several tugs at different locations along the ship being docked. Each tug had its own manueverings to do. One tug was the lead or "power tug", and the skipper of that tug would use manuevering whistle signals to all the other tugs as well as to the captain or pilot on the ship being docked. The whistle signals were instantaneous, and each of the ship docking tugs, as well as the ship being docked responded in their own ways, as required. Radio conversations with 4 or more tugs and the bride of the ship being docked (particularly if there was a language barrier on a foreign flagged ship) would take too long and might be confused.

In November of 1979, I was fortunate in that a buddy of mine was fireman on the old steam tug "Edna G" out of Two Harbors, Minnesota. The Edna G was run by the Duluth, Missabe, and Iron Range Railroad. She had been ordered new in 1896 by the DM & IR RR, and was one of the first vessels to get a Babcock & Wilcox watertube boiler. She was hand fired with soft coal, right to the ending of her active service in the 1980's. I was aboard the Edna G, riding in her engine room, when we left the dock at 10:00 on a snowy November night. We were going out to turn the US Steel Company's ore carrier the "Anderson". The Anderson needed to be turned by getting a towing hawser made onto her bow, to get inside the breakwall. Then, the Edna G would lead the Anderson to the ore dock and assist in docking her. The Edna G had an engine telegraph, but the captain never used it. He gave all his engine orders with signals on the manuevering whistle as we steamed out to meet the Anderson. It was a night I will never forget. Snow was swirling and it was pitch dark. The Edna G did have radar, and to power the radar, she had a small WWII motor generator set mounted on a bulkead. To make lighting current, she had a locomotive type steam turbo generator (known on the railroads as a "dynamo"). This made 32 volts DC, which was standard RR lighting current for ages.

The skipper of the Edna G did have the radar going, and he did use the radio once or twice when we got near the Anderson. When we got near the Anderson, it was a sight I will never forget. Out of the darkness and swirling snow there was the "Anderson", seeming as big as a mountain with the old "USS" (United States Steel) logo on her funnel illuminated by floodlights. The two skippers communicated their manueverings entirely by whistle signals. The deckhands got a hawser made between the bows of both vessels, and the Edna G went full astern with a jingle (the skipper did pull the jingle bell to tell the engineer to give the engine all she had in her). Once we got the Anderson turned and pointed inside the breakwall, the two vessels came bow to bow to drop the hawser.

We led the Anderson in to the dock, got her berthed, and never once did the skipper- other than a jingle or two- communicate with the engineer by anything but the manuevering whistle. The engine room of a coal fired steam vessel is an experience. There is a very low and friendly noise level. No screaming fuel oil pumps as on an oil fired vessel. Very low vibration levels, except when maneuvering and changing direction. It is an experience everyone should have at least once in their lives.

Thanks for the original post and the interesting posts that followed .
This similar video turned up on my screen after the original one .
Perhaps it was all part of the same original production .
YouTube
As did this one from the 1950 s
YouTube
I agree there are many interesting looking videos on the channel that hosted the video in Sandiapaul’s original post .
YouTube
Jim

My thanks too for posting the video. I enjoyed that. And thanks also to Joe Michaels, for the history and the theory

Thanks very much for posting, great footage. Brings back memories of learning to stop forward momentum on some of the larger vessels I've maneuvered around harbours

John

ahh, yes Joe it was the "Lilac" I was rethinking of, mis-remembered or mixed them up. what is the status of it currently? it's still at pier 40? (at Houston st, haven't been by in a bit). SP, Thanks for the post, that is some hardcore stuff there!

Jim Christie said:

Thanks for the original post and the interesting posts that followed .
This similar video turned up on my screen after the original one .
Perhaps it was all part of the same original production .
YouTube
As did this one from the 1950 s
YouTube
I agree there are many interesting looking videos on the channel that hosted the video in Sandiapaul’s original post .
YouTube
Jim

Click to expand...

A topical video from that last source: Flu precautions in Chicago in January 1920 include face masks (single layer of gauze over the mouth of dubious value). Ambulance delivers lady on gurney and the men carry it up the front steps to the hospital. Don't shake hands, salute.

YouTube

Larry

Joe,
I took this picture at South St Seaport in the early/mid 1970's. Can you you tell us anything about this boat?

cyanidekid said:

ahh, yes Joe it was the "Lilac" I was rethinking of, mis-remembered or mixed them up. what is the status of it currently? it's still at pier 40? (at Houston st, haven't been by in a bit). SP, Thanks for the post, that is some hardcore stuff there!

Click to expand...

Lilac is still in Manhattan, at pier 25 now. I went aboard 2 or 3 years ago, volunteers were offering tours. Lilac Preservation Project

Very cool to see but it didn't seem like she'd be under steam anytime soon. I believe she has two 3 cylinder (triple expansion?) engines side by side along with some substantial electrical generating equipment. It's fascinating to visit, I'd highly recommend it once it's back open for tours.