Mary Habstritt on the Lilac, moored at Pier 25. Habstritt is the director of the Lilac Preservation Project. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib
These days, before she goes aboard the 1933 former Coast Guard steamship Lilac, moored at Tribeca’s Pier 25, Mary Habstritt first looks for broken windows. Then once on the boat, she carefully peers into each room before entering. A newly purchased canister of pepper spray hangs from her belt.
Habstritt, who is the director of the historic museum boat, the Lilac Preservation Project, has been thinking hard about safety, following repeated break-ins last month by a man who she and crew members fear will return again.
On the wall of the boat’s gyro room, where exhibit materials and a donation container are stored, are enlarged photographs of the man, Shawn Alexander, 41, made from photo IDs he left behind on one of his visits, according to Habstritt.
“The first time I discovered he’d been here I opened it up to get the sign boards out and, like, where’s the donation bottle?”
The container and its contents of $200 were gone, she said.
Then she found a door closed that’s always left open. And a missing door knob. And cigarette butts in the captain’s cabin. And the ship’s American flag, normally folded up, laying on a bunk.
A crawl space, always covered by a piece of plywood, was open. Habstritt knew she’d had an unwanted visitor—maybe still on board.
“I grabbed my flashlight and pocket knife and stuck my head in the crawl space and looked around,” she recalled. “And then I go, ‘This is really stupid. I should just call the police.’”
“That was the first time.”
Alexander returned five more times within less than two weeks, according to Habstritt.
Two days after the first break-in, Habstritt said, a volunteer with the River Project looked through the pilot house window and saw Alexander inside. She called the Park Enforcement Patrol and a PEP officer escorted Alexander off the boat, Habstritt said, but he returned in the afternoon.
This time, as Habstritt put it, “he appeared to have quickly made himself at home.” A DVD player and flat-screen TV were set up on a counter, and a digital projector had been placed on a table.
Alexander was arrested. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of petit larceny, and two members of the boat staff were given orders of protection against him. Alexander was released the day of his hearing on the condition that he stay out of trouble and not violate the protection orders for a year.
According to Habstritt, Alexander also received a mental health assessment after stating that his mother had bought him the ship.
That night, Habstritt said, Alexander walked up to the ship as Frank Hanavan, a volunteer supervisor, was closing up. He left, only to break in the next night and sleep over. Habstritt said the boat’s engineer discovered him and called the police, but he escaped, this time leaving behind his wallet and IDs.
The next night, Oct. 12, she said, Toby Young, who runs the Pier 25 concessions for Manhattan Youth, saw him trying to break in and called PEP.
He got away again.
Alexander had not been seen on the pier since that last incident, as of Oct. 30, nor had he been arrested again, according to police.
Still, Habstritt remains cautious. “I expect he’ll be back,” she said.