The SS United States, an elite cruise ship during its 1952 debut, has been left to rot on the Philadelphia waterfront since 1996.
Historic ship SS United States rescued from scrapheap
By David B. Caruso
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — An ocean liner that was the biggest and fastest ever built in the United States, and a symbol of national prestige until it was left to rot on the Philadelphia waterfront, may soon sail again.
Norwegian Cruise Lines said Monday it has purchased the SS United States and intends to refurbish and return it to service, a half-century after the massive steamship set a speed record for a trans-Atlantic crossing.
The announcement amazed preservation groups, who had been fighting what looked like a losing battle to rescue the ship from being scrapped.
"I'm stunned," said Susan Gibbs, the granddaughter of the ship's designer, William Francis Gibbs. "The last several years, the news has all been bleak. It has all been rumors about scrapping, and one failed venture after another."
For years, the SS United States has been a rusting hulk seemingly abandoned at an unused wharf on the Philadelphia waterfront. Underneath the peeling paint, though, lay a rich history.
On its maiden voyage in 1952, the powerful liner and its 268,000 horsepower engines set a new trans-Atlantic speed record of three days, 10 hours, 42 minutes. That record stood until 1990.
The ship was big, too — at 990 feet, it was 108 feet longer than the Titanic.
It carried numerous celebrities in more than 800 Atlantic crossings. Among those celebrities were Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, President Kennedy and England's King Edward VIII. Bill Clinton took it on his way to Oxford University in 1968.
Air travel finally did the big ship in. It was decommissioned in 1969 and was briefly stored at ports in Virginia, Turkey and Ukraine before docking in Philadelphia in 1996.
The late developer and hotel owner Homer Hadley bought the ship for $5 million in 1978, and had planned a $35 million overhaul to ready it for cruises between Los Angeles and Hawaii.
But after his United States Cruises Inc. filed for bankruptcy, the ship was auctioned off for $2.6 million in 1992.
Norwegian Cruise Lines spokeswoman Susan Robison wouldn't say how much the company had paid for the ship, which had been owned by a New Jersey firm, Cantor Companies. Messages left at Cantor's offices were not immediately returned.
Robison also declined to say how much it might cost to refurbish the ship. Previous estimates had been between $200 million and $500 million.
The ship was gutted in the mid-1990s, and its interior will probably need to be redesigned to compete with modern-day cruise ships, Robison said.
Fans of the ship, though, said that its torpedo-resistant hull is undamaged and that it could be made seaworthy again.
"She just needs to be sandblasted and rewired and she can sail," said Robert Hudson Westover, 39, chairman of the SS United States Foundation, a group that has been lobbying for the ship's preservation.
"I'm just giddy," he said. "Saving the SS United States is equivalent to saving one of the great engineering wonders of the world."
