On the Good Ship Lilac

Myself and the Pulchritudinous Polymath flexed our sea legs and strolled over to Pier 40, Hudson River Park on Friday night to see the new photo exhibit onboard the steamship Lilac. The Lilac is purported to be one of the Coast Guard’s last steam-powered vessels, and was employed as a lighthouse tender, and then a buoy tender from 1933 through 1972. But mostly she’s just a cool old boat. Museum Director Mary Habstritt is an old friend from my New-York Historical Society days, and she was the curator of the Theatre Museum’s showboat exhibit I did some programming for on the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge back in aught seven. She and husband Gerald Weinstein, President of the Lilac Preservation Project took us around the old tub, and showed us the engine room, the galley, and sundry other points of interest. Numerous of Gerry’s photos were up, as were some by Sy Weinstein, David Goodman and David Hodgson, the exhibition’s curator. The exibition, called Pathways in Water and Steel will next be on view this Saturday night, October 9, as part of Open House New York. The Lilac folks were featured recently on a piece about that event on WFUV 90.7. To listen, go here (third piece in). The Lilac needs public programs, folks. O’Neill’s Sea Plays, anyone?