Philadelphia Weekly Has Big U as Lead Story!

[rhwest...@yahoo.com]

Great reporting by Frank Rubino in the Philadelphia Weekly
Go to the story: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/?inc=article&id=929&x=ship-not-in-shape&_c=news

Ship, Not In Shape

by Frank Rubino

A once-iconic vessel is rusting away in the shadow of big box stores.
Warming up his work van outside a South Philly Best Buy on a December
Sunday morning, Sal Borriello gazes across Columbus Boulevard at the
frigid Delaware and considers a colossal ship he usually takes for
granted.

He shakes his head.

”No, I didn’t,” the 39–year–old Geek Squadder tells a stranger who’s
asked whether he knew the hulking ocean liner docked at Pier 82 since
1996 is famous.

Borriello doubtless has plenty of company.

”Yeah, sadly she’s been forgotten,” agrees Robert Hudson Westover, who
could talk all day about the SS United States’ claims to seafaring
fame.

Westover could tell you how jubilant New Yorkers held a tickertape
parade to honor the ”Big U” after it set the transatlantic speed
record – three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes – on its maiden voyage
from New York to Cornwall, England in 1952.

He could tell you how the onetime ultramodern luxury liner is five
city blocks long and how the tops of its striking dual exhaust funnels
stand 15 stories above the water, making the ship longer and taller
than the Titanic.

He could tell you how the government paid most of the $78 million
construction cost because the ship was actually supposed to be a
disguised military carrier designed to transport 15,000 troops
anywhere in the world within 10 days.

He could tell you how JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn and the
like enjoyed its lavish staterooms, restaurants and movie theaters.

But if you crossed paths with Westover, he’d probably tell you instead
that in his opinion, time is running short for ”the maritime soul of
our nation.”

”She’s just sitting there rusting away,” says the 44–year–old ex–
Marine and founder of the SS United States foundation, a Washington DC–
based nonprofit aimed at preserving the iconic vessel, which last
sailed in 1969.

”She’s sat for 30 years. If you know how she looked when she came to
Philadelphia and compare that to what she looks like now…eventually
rust is going to take its toll and she’s going to fall apart.”

To be sure, the onetime gleaming hull and vibrant red, white and blue
smoke funnels look sadly faded. The interior is reportedly stripped to
its barebones.

Westover adds that a structural failure of a deck or part of one would
almost certainly render the ship unsalvageable and result in its being
sunk or towed away for scrap.

He’d regard that as a tragedy.

So he wants the ship’s present ”captains” – the owners of Norwegian
Cruise Lines – to abandon their oft–stated, never–initiated ambition
of restoring the ship for re–sailing purposes and commit to what he
calls a more realistic goal of converting it into a national
historical monument.

”I’ve known since I started the foundation in ’97,” he says, ”that our
only chance was a concerted effort that would win the hearts of
Americans, seeing us all fighting to save the ship as a national
treasure that you could tour.”

He waxes about securing Congressional protection for the ship and
about the creation of a public–private entity similar to the
Smithsonian Institution – with the ship’s restoration via a major
public works project its first endeavor.

He dreams of the nautical monument of his dreams opening its doors in
Norfolk, Va. since that’s where the Big U was built.

Might any of it actually come to pass?

”If we can generate enough public awareness,” he says hopefully before
trailing off.

New Jersey real estate tycoon Edward Cantor had the SS Unites States
towed to Philadelphia in ’96 in the hope of restoring it at the old
Naval Shipyard. He wanted the city to become his partner. But the
venture never materialized, Cantor died in 2002 and NCL bought the
ship from his estate in ’03.

In public statements, the cruise giant has repeatedly voiced its
ambition of restoring the ship for the purpose of re–sailing it in
North America. But Westover has always regarded that ambition as
something akin to pixie dust.

”They’ve owned her for nearly six years and they haven’t done a thing
with her yet,” he complains. ”The business end is never going to work.
You have these folks with these starry–eyed ideas about her sailing
again. Yeah, I suppose, if Donald Trump or Bill Gates wants to dump a
billion dollars into her.

”Realistically, it ain’t gonna happen.”

Cost estimates for NCL’s purported ambition have floated around $500
million, considerably higher than the cost of building a new cruise
ship. PW doesn’t know NCL’s intentions at this point since company
representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment

Dan McSweeney, a spokesman for the Raleigh, NC–based SS United States
conservancy – which Westover derides as NCL’s ”pet nonprofit” since
NCL has funded the organization – allows that the ship is nowhere near
the point of firing its boilers again, and may never be.

”We are working off of (NCL’s) public statements that they would like
to refurbish and return it to service,” he says. ”However, especially
given the economy we’re operating in, there’s no guarantee that’s
going to occur.”

McSweeney, whose father worked on the ship for 17 years, says that
like Westover, he’d love to see the ship converted into a stationary
attraction should it never sail again, although he’d like it relocated
to New York, its longtime home port.

”But either way, we’re talking about projects that could run into the
hundreds of millions of dollars,” he says. ”There’s no way that’s
going to happen overnight. It’s going to take a long time for
something to occur.”

McSweeney also agrees that the great ship Sal Borriello looks past
every morning deserves better.

”The way it is now is a sad state of affairs in the sense that it’s
just sitting there listless,” he says. ”This was once the pride of
America, sitting on the waterfront in Philadelphia in a forlorn state.
Nobody likes that.”