PHILADELPHIA
— Caretakers for the SS United States, the legendary ocean liner moored on the
Delaware River since 1996, are renewing and expanding their emergency distress
call for the beleaguered piece of American maritime history.
In an
eleventh-hour reprieve that spared the ship a date with the scrap yard, a local
philanthropist's $5.8 million gift allowed the SS United States Conservancy to
buy it and keep it afloat until November 2012. With that date looming, the
nonprofit conservancy launched a "Save the United States" fundraising
rally Wednesday to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the ship's maiden
voyage on July 3, 1952.
The
conservancy has raised about $6 million so far but needs $25 million to restore
the exterior and part of the interior to house a museum, said Susan Gibbs,
conservancy executive director and the granddaughter of William Francis Gibbs,
the ship's Philadelphia-born designer. The goal is to spark interest, raise
public awareness and literally get investors on board.
"The
SS United States is America's flagship. It symbolizes the very best that this
nation has produced," she said. "It is going to once again be an
amazing icon for the nation to appreciate and enjoy."
The
990-foot-long ocean liner, which transported patrons across the Atlantic with
both elegance and muscle, has spent the bulk of its life in a nomadic existence
plagued by shifting owners, dashed hopes and close calls with the scrap yard.
But even in its humbled state, the ship newspapers once feted as "the
greatest shipbuilding effort in the history of this country" and "the
most revolutionary modern superliner in the world" still remains an
awe-inspiring sight even to those who remember it from its heyday.
"The
engineering, the beauty, the service, the safety – this was the best, the best
in the world, none of the ships could compare with it," Joe Rota, who
worked on the ship in the 1950s, said during a recent visit aboard the United
States. "And it would be an absolute tragedy to lose it."
The
$5.8 million donation from cable TV mogul H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, whose
naval architect father designed parts of the SS United States, saved the ship
from a likely scrapping and allowed the conservancy to buy the ship from
Norwegian Cruise Lines in February 2011 and pay for 20 months of docking and
related costs. The conservancy's redevelopment arm is exploring potential
partnerships with entities in Philadelphia, New York and Miami to refashion the
vessel as a stationary entertainment complex with a hotel, theater, restaurants
and shopping – but the clock is winding down along with the money from
Lenfest's gift.
"What
you see here is kind of discouraging but ... you could scrape this down and you
could repaint it, and when we light the lights at night on occasion she's
absolutely gorgeous again," Rota said. "And we could have that again.
... This would be an attraction the whole world would want to come and take
part in again."
Commissioned
as a joint venture between the Navy and ship designer Gibbs & Cox, the $78
million liner's luxury cloaked its military might. Though never called to
battle, it could have been converted in a single day to transport 14,000 troops
for 10,000 miles without refueling.
Instead
it carried more than 1 million passengers across the Atlantic over the course
of 400 round trips, among them President John F. Kennedy, Marlon Brando,
Elizabeth Taylor, Salvador Dali, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco, and
England's King Edward VIII. In 1968, Bill Clinton traveled tourist-class en
route to Oxford University.
The
liner's glory days were short-lived as air travel rose in popularity, however,
and the United States was taken out of service in 1969.
It
changed hands multiple times, from the Navy and on through a series of
restoration-minded investors. It was unceremoniously towed from Virginia to
Turkey to Ukraine, finally arriving in Philadelphia as a gutted hulk. Another
succession of developers and a cruise line failed to return the ship to service
as retrofitting costs proved too great.
"It's
been 60 years since I first set foot on this ship with my mother ... it's very
exciting," said Louise Meiere Dunn, 82, of Stamford, Conn., who stood
recently on the promenade where she danced the conga on the maiden voyage, when
the United States set a new trans-Atlantic record from New York to England: 3
days, 10 hours, 40 minutes.
The
record that still stands for a conventional passenger ocean liner.
"We
understood there was going to be some sort of celebration when we were going to
break the record," Dunn said. "We went out on deck ... but the
weather was so foul we came back here and found it on the promenade deck."
She
recalled with a laugh that she and the other young people on board partied
until breakfast, which they ate while still in their evening gowns and black
tie from the night before. Several weeks later, a friend in India saw her
dancing the conga on a movie newsreel.
"I'm
hoping that this ship can be revived, repurposed," she said. "It would
be wonderful to see this promenade deck being used again – and having a conga
line, maybe."
Source: huffington post. By JOANN LOVIGLIO. 12 July
2012
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