Friends of the S.S. United States Send Out a Last S.O.S
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Although the interiors were stripped long ago to remove asbestos, the power plants are in reasonably good shape.
The S.S. United States was the fastest transatlantic liner ever built - England to US in about 3 1/2 days. She was built with some Government funding with the potential to be used as a troop carrier. This included warship-like features, such as more bulkheads and watertight doors than most passenger ships, heavy fireproofing (no wood except the piano and the butcher's block), multiple engine rooms, and a warship-like hull and propulsion plant. If the US needed to get an army somewhere in a hurry, the ship was ready.
That's why conversion to a cruise ship didn't work out. Norwegian Lines considered it. But cruise ships today look like Vegas hotels built on barges, with huge interior open spaces, swimming pools, water slides, casinos, shopping malls, etc. The SS United States was built for speed and survivability, not recreation.
I don't know this ship, but given that it was built around 1950, chances are that the builders used asbestos for isolation.
That means that, even if the ship were new, it would cost millions to make it suitable for almost any use.
For an example, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Rotterdam. The English page doesn't say it, but restoration of that ship to its original state cost over €100M.
Maybe Paul Allen will get involved. He likes large boats and has the capital to finance a refurbishment.
I find such ships fascinating, but also sad in that many of them are floating superfund cleanup sites. Restoring one is something a billionaire might do on a whim but since such ships became impractical commercially, their eventual fate was decided.
Bill and Jeff should spend the money on helping the sick and the starving and skip the boat.
Philadelphia should invest in things that make the waterfront more accessible and encourage a recovery of the natural flora and fauna.
Come on, man. That's not even coherent. If you get mad when people tell other people how to spend their money, just say so.
A) Waterfront improvements are somewhat more socially important than saving the ship. But helping the sick and starving is massively more socially important than both.
B) Public bodies such as the city of Philadelphia have a much stronger obligation to focus on socially important causes than do private citizens.
C) However, frankrizzo was imposing a much stronger condition on private citizens ("no ship while the sick and starving are suffering!") than on the city ("let's make the waterfront prettier!" "but what about the sick and starving?" "sssh, don't worry about that"). This violates either A or B. Since A and B are commonly held beliefs, C is strange.