America's last surviving and greatest transatlantic ocean liner
Posted on 10/08/2015 11:22:29 AM PDT by NRx
Marilyn Monroe, JFK and the Mona Lisa all enjoyed the luxurious Atlantic crossing provided by the Titanic-sized SS United States.
But the famed liner, which still holds the speed record for a crossing between the US and Britain by a passenger ship, now faces its final journey - to the scrapyard.
The SS United States Conservancy organisation can no longer afford the $60,000 a month it costs to dock the ship on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, where it rests, empty and rusting.
The group had planned to turn the ship, which is nicknamed the Big U, into a real estate development for New York's waterfront, which was once the ship's home, but no investors have yet come forward.
Unless that changes by the end of this month, the group said, “we will have no choice but to negotiate the sale of the ship to a responsible recycler”.
Susan Gibbs, executive director of SS United States Conservancy, told the New York Times that the decision to seek bids from scrapyards was "excruciating".
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
America's last surviving and greatest transatlantic ocean liner
Most unfortunate, but inevitable.
So true on many levels.
There were attempts to convert the staterooms on the SS United States into time-share condos in the early 1980’s.
Time and again investor groups looked various options for the ship-including a Queen Mary type hotel. But the ship was just too run-down to do anything. I believe there was also going to be a major expense in removing all of the asbestos on board.
I remember seeing it when we went to NYC when I was 8 years old. There three like her docked on the East River (I guess). Never thought of it again until I saw this.
I just saw another article that says she may be moving to Brooklyn.
From another time.
There was a time when military families travelled across the Atlantic and Pacific in ships operated by the Military Sea Transportation Service. Army troops sailed fore and aft and higher ranks and families were quartered in tiny metal staterooms five deep in the middle of the ship.
I made six crossings of the Pacific in these ships, named for long dead Army generals. MSTS was known back then as “the Army’s Navy.”
Titanic’s sister ship Olympic survived WWI but not the great depression, and in 1935 she was sold to the scrapyard. Heads of state including FDR wrote to Cunard Lines begging that the ship be spared. No dice, said Cunard, and Olympic sailed under her own steam to be broken up (stripped of her fittings which survive in London pubs).
IMO the SS United States because of its symbolic value should be towed out to sea and scuttled. A less ignominious end than the boneyard.
Cool
Ship is gutted, asbestos is removed, which really precludes the conversion to a hotel - there's nothing left of the original furnishings (or even the propellers, those were all donated...)
Problem with converting it into a time share is that stateroom bulkheads are part of the structure of the ship, it would take a major undertaking to re-structure the internal skeleton to support it. Without any of the furnishings, the attractiveness of a retro-cruise or hotel is gone and far too expensive to replicate.
It is a US flagged ship, so it'd be fine for use for domestic cruises, but the rooms are smaller than most desire, plus of the three sister ships which were converted, only one remains in domestic cruise service in Hawaii, and even that might be pulled by the end of the year.
It is not suitable for a floating museum as there's nothing to exhibit without pulling from the museums and collections that have the fittings...
Honestly, the only thing I can see this as being suited for is a floating university - it's gutted so converting it would be easy, the small rooms would work well for dorms, the common rooms would work well for classes, and shockingly, the engines are extremely well maintained. Aside from fitting out the ship, it would require making new props and it would be good to go.
Alternately, it could be fitted out as a floating immigration port to bring over all those 'refugees' from Europe, processing them during travel.
Anything else, really, just doesn't work.
One of those MSTS ships was the Edwin D. Patrick, named for the 6th Inf Div commander killed in action in the Philippines. In Japan in 1957 we saw a family we knew embark on her in Yokohama. I was eight years old & when wellwishers threw gobs of ticker tape I thought all the tape would prevent the ship from leaving the dock!
Boarded it beforehand; there was very little on the ship that was not painted steel. She was not scrapped until 2010, amazingly.
Looks fast standing still - great shot
How sad. When we were stationed in England in the early 60s my dad (USAF) came home from work one day shortly before we were rotating back stateside. He’d just been told that he had the choice of us flying back or going home on the SS United States.....yep, we came home on her. My dad and I had a ball; my brother and Mother suffered from seasickness most of the time. The most gorgeous sight I’d ever seen and probably will EVER see was sailing into NYC in the early morning hours and there stood the Statue of Liberty in all her glory! This was in early 1962!
The one they had, the Sequoia, is now available for charter, but it has not been used as the Presidential Yacht since Nixon, IIRC.
This would be great for POTUS Trump to spearhead.
Restore all the midcentury retro fittings and posh interiors and make it the coolest Presidential yacht on earth.
It would be magnificent.
The last of her generation of great ships, and holder of the Blue Riband.
A tragedy to see her go, but time stands still for no one, including the queens of the seas.
If the ship had any other name it would have been scrapped 20 years ago. I’ve seen pictures of the inside of this ship and it is time to scrap it.
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