These tugboats belong to the Reichert Towing Line, which was founded by Jacob Charles Reichert in 1906. Reichert, having worked on tugboats since the age of 16, was promoted to Captain by the time he was 21. He went on to assemble his own fleet of ten ships which formed the Reichert Towing Company. The tugs in Reichert's Line are docked at Dupont Street and participating in the Tugboat Strike of 1946, a two-week strike beginning on February 1st which aimed to bring all activity of the bustling harbor to a standstill. Strikers demanded higher wages, a reduction of working hours, and two weeks of vacation. Wages, kept at a standstill even after World War II, ranged from 67 cents an hour for deckhands and cooks to just over one-dollar an hour for captains and engineers. The strike affected every corner of the city. Mayor William O'Dwyer warned of brown-outs because tuggers wouldn't be bringing in coal. The subway system had to be kept unheated, and public schools were closed and converted to either hospitals or housing for those without fuel for heating. Lights for streetlamps were dimmed or shut off. The strike ended on February 14th, and thus the Mayor's forecast of mass chaos never came into fruition. Both members of the International Longshoremen's Association, the labor union group, and the Employers Wage Adjustment Committee, representing owners and operators of the tug companies, agreed to assemble a three-person panel to negotiate the union's demands and found a compromise.