Posted on 11/30/2010 9:58:29 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
PHILADELPHIA - The USS Olympia, docked at the Independence Seaport Museum on the Delaware River since 1996, is no ordinary warship. Built for about $2.1 million and commissioned in 1893, the vessel's got Victorian-era ice machines. She's got engines the size of 7-Elevens. If they fail, she's got sails, too.
She's got a printing press, bathtubs, furnishings fit for a gentleman's parlor and a prototype of a water cooler called a "scuttlebutt" around which sailors gathered and talked. She's gorgeous - a priceless artifact of American history, dominating Penn's Landing.
But pricelessness comes with a price. To keep the Olympia afloat, the Seaport Museum needs $20 million, but it hasn't come up with the cash. After spending more than $5.5 million in the past 14 years on the ship's upkeep, appealing to federal agencies for help that isn't coming and weathering a $1.5 million embezzlement scandal that landed its former director in jail for 15 years, the museum announced in February that it can't afford further maintenance. Within three years, experts estimate, the Olympia will fall apart. If it isn't saved, it will be dismantled for scrap or sunk to build an artificial reef off Cape May, N.J.
And with it will go a symbol of America's age of empire. When the Olympia was built, the United States was redefining itself as a global power, taking on expensive, elective wars in ever-more-distant places. The Olympia was the first step toward an imperial navy, the first steel American warship designed to cross an ocean to antagonize an enemy. If, in 1893, it wasn't yet clear who that enemy would be, the Olympia's design flaunted the symbolism of luxury - and the luxury of symbolism....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yes, but I was referring to the “got” versus “has.”
“It’s hard to believe $20 million can’t be found for this.”
Bill Gates probably has lost that much under his sofa cushions.
The big problem with Olympia is that she has to be maintained by Philadelphia union workers, which really jacks up the cost.
“she’s has” just does not sound right.
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