Actually this first in this series started here. The ship is SS California, launched in April 1923. If you look at the top photo in the link in the previous sentence, you’ll see this SS California started with three funnels, although it’s likely that two of the three were dummies. Extra “dummy” funnels were “style enhancements,” added for appearance. Notice the Lipton Tea building along the water in Hoboken? The photo was cropped as shown. Anyone help identify the tugboat company?
As I mentioned in the September post linked above, I bought an album of prints at an antique shop in Oswego NY on one of my stops there this summer. We were spending extra time there to replace a prop dinged on an immovable uncharted underwater obstruction. Thanks to William Lafferty, I’ve learned that Mr. Gmelin “was a Cranford, New Jersey, based amateur photographer and maritime historian. He was one of the earliest members of the Steamship Historical Society of America and an occasional contributor to its journal, Steamboat Bill [now called Power Ships]. He died in 2001 at the age of eighty-eight.” Click here and scroll for a photo of Mr. Gmelin, whose full name including the first name spelling I used above was stamped on the back of most of the photos.
Click here for SHSA’s online gallery.
tugster: a waterblog 
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November 1, 2016 at 4:22 pm
tugster
Thanks to Dave Boone, who identifies the tug as one of Barrett Towing . . . “two toned deckhouses, kindda like Turecamo, yellowish upper and dark brown below. Stack was all black with a red-orange band at the top. Moran bought them in 1949”
November 3, 2016 at 3:53 pm
Rembert
(If) SS California is evidence, that Mies van der Rohe was wrong – why is „Dummy funnels“ yet to be written?
November 3, 2016 at 4:21 pm
tugster
Rembert– I’m not sure what you mean . . . “less is more” maybe?
November 4, 2016 at 5:07 am
Rembert
Oops.
I meant exactly that, at least here, most often misused quote. But I hope, it could not be misunderstood, that I prefer MS California with its push – up – emission system to SS Uruguay or Gascogne.