The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the SS United States Conservancy group has reached an agreement to purchase the historic liner from Norwegian Cruise Line. NCL has owned the ship for several years and had originally planned to move it from it's berth in Philadelphia, where it has sat rusting away since 1996, and refurbish it as part of their NCL America brand. Unfortunately the NCL America experiment has failed and they had recently been taking offers from scrapyards.
The deal to purchase the ship for $3million includes a generous donation from Gerry Lenfest who is a local Philadelphia philanthropist. He has pledged to donate over $5million dollars to help pay for the $60,000 monthly bill to keep the ship docked in Philadelphia. The sale is still not finalized though as the Environmental Protection Agency must investigate the ship and determine what toxic materials are onboard and how that would be dealt with in any renovation project. Since the ship is over 60 years old, there is probably a lot of bad stuff onboard like asbestos.
It is possible that the ship, once restored, may become a permanently docked floating hotel like the Queen Mary however the restoration will not be easy as the ship had been completely gutted and all interior fittings auctioned when she was taken out of service.
I hope this gets done. It will be great to see this former shining symbol of American engineering and industrial might restored to her former glory.
1 comment:
What a shame that these iconic historic symbols are left to rot and rust. With such high bills to keep them going, it hardly seems worth it as they deteriorate more and more. The same is happening with the QE2 at the moment as she is shoved from pillar to post with nobody quite knowing what to do with her. It is sad to think that all of these modern, beautiful ships that are launching this year will one day end up the sad rusty mess that these ships are now
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