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SS United States.......

Laszlo

By Laszlo,
in Celebrity Cruises

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dkjretired

dkjretired

Posted
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Enjoy the video........

 

 

She is sitting on the Delaware River on the Philly side. If you cross the Ben Franklin Bridge from NJ into Pa you can see her at the pier. Every once in awhile someone issues a press release that they are going to do something with her. Costs might be too high and from what I've read she's loaded with Asbestos.

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LA_CA_GAL

LA_CA_GAL

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She is sitting on the Delaware River on the Philly side. If you cross the Ben Franklin Bridge from NJ into Pa you can see her at the pier. Every once in awhile someone issues a press release that they are going to do something with her. Costs might be too high and from what I've read she's loaded with Asbestos.

 

 

Not the Ben Franklin bridge it is the Walt Whitman bridge. If you are coming from NJ into Philly, it will be on the right hand side.

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Laszlo

Laszlo

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Not the Ben Franklin bridge it is the Walt Whitman bridge. If you are coming from NJ into Philly, it will be on the right hand side.

 

 

Yup, just across the street from IKEA

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fshagan

fshagan

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Crystal Cruise Lines looked into rebuilding her for passenger service but ...

 

... modifying the ship for today’s standards for oceangoing service (SOLAS) would require significant changes to the hull that would pose stability challenges. Additionally, the installation of a modern, state-of-the-art diesel electric propulsion plant would have necessitated altering of the existing shaft lines and rebuilding about 25 percent of the hull to reconfigure the ship to a twin shaft-twin rudder arrangement. While it was known that the vessel would need to have been essentially rebuilt from the inside out, these specific challenges, among others, collectively posed significant risk to the success of the project.

From http://www.ssusc.org/crystal-cruises-concludes-ss-united-states-technical-feasibility-study/

Crystal donated $350,000 to the SS United States Conservancy, the organization hoping to restore her.

The hull is sound, so the conservancy is hoping to get her docked a bit like the Queen Mary is in Long Beach, as a waterfront business of some sort. All of the interior fixtures and most of the building materials have been removed "down to the bare walls" so interior construction can happen without regard to preservation of historical objects.

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LA_CA_GAL

LA_CA_GAL

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I've seen it from both bridges, only said Ben because that was the last one I took.

 

OK, you could see it from the BFB. Here is a shot of WWB at the bottom with BFB at the top, with the SSUS circled in red.

 

ssus_zpseagplulj.jpg

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JMG

JMG

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Thanks for posting. We see her when we cross the bridge.

 

Reminds me of the cruise we took on the SS Norway. The ship was in disrepair but it was special to be on one of the great ships of days past.

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donaldsc

donaldsc

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Enjoy the video........

 

 

She was designed for another era of ship travel - cruise as fast as you can and do not worry about fuel consumption. Also, she was essentially a high class bus designed to get the passengers across the Atlantic in the minimum time possible. A wonderful ship in her day but a total dinosaur now. I class the people who say that she should be brought back to life as the same class of people who say that we should rebuild a new Titanic. Dreamers.

 

DON

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thephillykid

thephillykid

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The reports that I have read from local sources is that NCL both her and was deciding on what to do with her. Every few years, there is a report that they are going to scrap her, but someone comes trough and donates money to pay for the upkeep. She is a real South Philly Landmark, just south of Pends Landing. You should go to John's Roast Pork and get a sandwich and step outside and eat it while taking in the sights of a magnificent old ship.

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3dog

3dog

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Sigh. The SS United States was my first "cruise", and I have not only a soft spot, but mixed feelings as to what her fate should be.

 

Granted at the time of those travels, this was a primary method for getting people between the U.S. and Europe. But as a transport, she has been made obsolete by more modern methods of transport, and is impractical to retrofit her as a leisure liner. Sure, some folks will board her for sentiment reasons (I probably would), but people would eventually discard her for the more modern cruise ship. This leaves only making her an attraction like the Queen Mary (that might actually be worth a renovation). Outside of that, it is probably time to let her go.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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The reports that I have read from local sources is that NCL both her and was deciding on what to do with her. Every few years, there is a report that they are going to scrap her, but someone comes trough and donates money to pay for the upkeep. She is a real South Philly Landmark, just south of Pends Landing. You should go to John's Roast Pork and get a sandwich and step outside and eat it while taking in the sights of a magnificent old ship.

 

NCL did once own the SSUS, but sold it to the SSUS Conservancy a few years back. Then Crystal Cruises (another line under the umbrella of Genting Group) proposed putting her back in service, but that idea was scrapped after spending a bunch of money.

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MixerDave

MixerDave

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There's a restaurant in the Outer Banks in North Carolina ( I think it's called the Wind Mill) that bought a lot of U.S. United States fixtures at auction and are all on display there. They have photos of all of them on their web site.

 

 

It was the Windmill - in Nags Head. Unfortunately it closed many years ago and was burned down as part of a fire training.

They had the ship's bell,, as well as the bar. The seats had name tags for such celebrities as JFK, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.

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