A federal judge has ordered the caretakers of the 70-year-old SS United States to move it from its pier in Philadelphia by 12 September or lose possession of the vast ocean liner known as the “Queen of the Seas”.
“You’re not entitled to be at the pier forever,” the US district judge Anita Brody told a conservancy body on Monday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The judge then threatened to hand over the giant rotting ship – known locally as south Philadelphia’s “Ikea boat” – to the owners of the pier.
But it may not be easy to move the vessel – which is 1,000ft and 47,000 tons – or even come up with a plan to do so. It has been docked there for three decades and cannnot move under its own propulsion. Daily dockage fees to the landlord Penn Warehousing run to $1,700 – but the ship’s caretakers, SS United States Conservancy, have refused to acknowledge that and have continued paying a previous rent of $850.
The dispute over the huge ship has been in and out of court – a magnified version of what to do with possessions that have no useful purpose but are held on to for reasons that cannot be articulated or clearly remembered.
Attorneys for the pier owners have described the vessel as a “toxic timebomb”.
The conservancy wants the ship in place until December. But Brody has waived $730,000 in back rent and wants it gone sooner. Ambitions to turn the ship into condominiums, a hotel, speakeasy or green space have not materialized.
The New York commercial real estate firm RXR realty came up with a plan to dock it in the Hudson River, convert it into an event space with a ballroom for 500, and use its huge funnels as atriums. But that, too, came to nothing.
“It’s not realistic,” Brody said. “We all have to live in realism.”
But the challenges of moving it include getting Coast Guard approval, assessing is its stability and avoiding hurricanes. According to the Inquirer, leads on other potential homes in Philadelphia, Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia have come up empty.
Two counties in Florida have expressed an interest. Their plan is to sink the ship to make an artificial reef attractive to tourist wreck-divers. But there is a major hurdle: transporting and preparing the ship for sinking could cost more than $10m.
The conservancy has said that it would sooner see the ship intact at the bottom of the sea than turned into scrap. It says that sinking it is “clearly not” its first choice – its priority is to find a home where the ship can be redeveloped “as a dynamic stationary, mixed-use destination”. But that could cost more than $400m.
The conservancy – which includes Susan Gibbs, whose grandfather, William Francis Gibbs, was the architect and engineer of the SS United States – called on Joe Biden and the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, to step in.
The group appealed to the politicians’ general sense of patriotism to save the SS United States from “the imminent threat of eviction and destruction”.
“Indeed, it would be a global embarrassment if the nation’s flagship were to face destruction during this time of grave geopolitical uncertainty abroad,” the group wrote in a three-page letter.
“Our cause is bigger than party politics,” Gibbs said in a statement. “It’s about demonstrating to the world that our great nation can still unite behind saving one of its most iconic symbols. We’re not looking for a bailout or big check. We need a location for the ship as we advance a viable private sector redevelopment plan.”
The conservancy have reportedly not heard back from the White House.
