Will NYC Make A Grab For SS United States?

SS UNITED STATES, greatest ocean liner ever built, now rusts at dock in S. Phila.

BY RORY McGLASSON

The more than 75,000 daily commuters who pass through Manhattan’s Staten Island Ferry terminal are seeing a new and important message about an endangered national icon, the SS United States.

The recent installation of a 70-foot-long banner in the main waiting room of the famous Whitehall Terminal is part of the SS United States Conservancy’s year long program to raise awareness about America’s flagship, the SS United States, and advance the effort to restore and repurpose the historic vessel that once called New York home.

The huge banner also promotes a free exhibition at the Forbes Galleries, New York entitled “The Ocean Liner United States: Celebrating the Past and Future of America’s Flagship,” opening May 18 and running through Sep. 8, 2012. The SS United  State s exhibition will be free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Purchased by the Conservancy in 2011 to save the ship from the scrapyard, the SS United States awaits transformation into a museum and mixed-use waterfront destination in a major port city.

The new banner includes striking before and after photos of the ship showing her gleaming hull when she was launched with great fanfare in 1952, as well as in her current condition. Built to be both luxury superliner and Cold War weapon, America’s passenger flagship, the SS United States, was the fastest and safest ocean liner ever built. Larger than the Titanic and faster than the Queen Mary, the United States is one of the last remaining of the great 20th-century ocean liners and a symbol of American post-war innovation. The ship still holds the transatlantic speed record, having broken the record on her maiden voyage almost 60 years ago.

The United States is now berthed in Philadelphia awaiting revitalization. “Thousands of New Yorkers who take to the waves every day cross the very same channel where the SS United States set out to ferry presidents, celebrities, tourists and immigrants across the Atlantic,” says Susan Gibbs, executive director of the SS United States Conservancy. “We hope that this exposure and the exhibition will remind New Yorkers of their ties to the nation’s flagship.  Like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty, there is only one SS United States.  She deserves to be preserved for generations to come.”

The Conservancy is currently raising funds to maintain the ship and begin the restoration process. The group is also advancing an aggressive search for developers interested in using some of the vessel’s more than 500,000 square feet of usable space for a variety of commercial purposes. The ship’s former home port of New York, along with Miami and other possible locations, is being considered for the ship’s next port of call as a mixed-used destination.

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