OK . . . I’ve got had with the the “vessel demolition” gag. How embarrassing! . Check the comments for part 3; the problems with the design are real. Talk about confirmation bias! Yes, I do not like the structure, a $200 million place to take selfies! Egads!
Here’s a call to help with a renewed effort to return Lilac to full operation; I’d say that’s restore and not just preserve. You might recall the photos I posted in November 2020 that gave the illusion that the lighthouse tender was underway using her own power.
This is a wish list for parts for getting Lilac back together, and some of these might be quite scarce. Four of the 13″ port lights are missing.
Here’s a close-up.
Also, a set of 12″ or 14″ ventilation stacks as seen on the bow below
and below. Ideally, they would be of riveted construction and can pivot.
Details of Lilac can be seen in these two posts I did back in 2007. In the photos, you see both the port lights and ventilation stacks.
A lot of restoration or preservation projects are getting more difficult by the year as parts and people with the needed skills become more and more rare, but miracles have already happened with Lilac, miracles such as descendants of crew coming forward with stuff.
tugster: a waterblog 
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April 7, 2021 at 2:57 pm
Lee Rust
The traditional life cycle of iron and steel ships is from shipyard to scrapyard. It’s only the prosperity of the latter half of the 20th century that enabled the popular preservation of vessels grown old beyond their utility. Now in the 21st, money is tight and cultural priorities have shifted.
For a couple of years, I tried to help promote the rescue of the abandoned tugboat Grouper, but it eventually became clear that the money, commitment and business model just weren’t there. So she will likely share the fate of Jupiter.
We can only hope that Lilac somehow escapes, perhaps because there are still enough loose dollars floating around in the 6th boro to keep her afloat.