When the SS United States sailed for the first time in nearly three decades Wednesday, Margaret Miller came to the Delaware River to watch the ship she once travelled in when she immigrated to the United States.
The 64-year-old Pennsauken resident was among hundreds lining the river to see the ocean liner, once hailed as a leading example of American shipbuilding, get towed down the river and into the Atlantic Ocean to begin its journey to becoming the world’s largest artificial reef.
The SS United States ferried many like Miller across the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Miller, who immigrated from Poland with her parents when she was 5 years old. “It’s been such a proud in my life to see that ship from time to time. To see it go - it’s a lot of mixed emotions.”
The ship will spend some two weeks at sea before arriving in Mobile, Alabama, where workers will prepare it to become the world’s largest artificial reef. It will be sunk in the the Gulf of Mexico, which was recently renamed “The Gulf of America” by President Donald Trump.
Okaloosa County, Florida, purchased the ship for $1 million late last year, sparing it from the scrapyard after a federal judge ordered the ship to be moved out of its dock. At the time, the SS United States Conservancy, the nonprofit that saved the ship in 2011, was in a rent dispute with its landlord, Penn Warehousing.
Several preservation efforts for the ship over the years have failed.
A museum in the Destin, Florida, area will feature items salvaged from the SS United States, said Jennifer Adams, tourism director for Okaloosa County. County officials intend to salvage the ship’s iconic smokestacks for the museum, Adams said.
It will be scuttled 20 nautical miles from Destin, turning it into an artificial reef that will benefit both sea life and support the local economy through tourism thanks to planned diving excursions.
The SS United States’ journey can be tracked online.
Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of the ship’s builder, couldn’t attend Wednesday’s departure but said the SS United States will continue to symbolize American industrialism.
“As the fastest ship to ever cross the Atlantic travels for the first time since arriving in Philadelphia in 1996, we are reminded of the postwar high-water mark that the SS United States so gracefully and powerfully embodied when she was launched in 1951,” Gibbs said in a statement Wednesday.
Warren Jones, a board member of the SS United States Conservancy, the nonprofit that spared the ship from scrapping in 2011, said Wednesday ended decades of uncertainty.
“There’s some real comfort in knowing that her future is set now,” Jones said. ”But, it’s sad. She’s become an institution of Philadelphia."
The ship was originally going to be towed out of Philadelphia in December, but it was postponed amid concerns from the Coast Guard and an active storm season in the Gulf. Fierce winds kept the ship at the docks on Monday and Tuesday.
The ship was pulled from its berth shortly before 11 a.m. By 12:41 p.m., emergency vehicles stopped traffic on the Walt Whitman Bridge while a set of tugboats guided the the ship under the bridge.
Hundreds lined the Freedom Pier and Proprietors Park in Gloucester City. Many cheered and applauded as the ship passed by.
Hunter Landau, 32, came to Gloucester City from Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, bringing with him a blanket once used on the ship that he bought through an online auction.
“The first piece I ever bought was a salt and pepper shaker from the SS United States,” said Landau. “That ship got me started on a lifelong obsession with ocean liners.”
At nearly 1,000 feet long, the SS United States was a leading ship on the United States Lines, a now-defunct sailing company. Its routes typically featured trips between New York City and Europe.
After being stripped of asbestos in Ukraine, the ship was hauled to Philadelphia in August 1996. It became an unintentional city landmark for people driving across the Walt Whitman Bridge while restoration attempts were made.
Jeanne Bickford admired the ship when she shopped at the Ikea across from the dock. During a recent visit she found notes posted to the fencing outside the ship’s dock.
“So many people had written letters and put them onto the fencing over there who had relatives that came over on the ship,” said Bickford, 65, of Deptford. “It was really touching because this is where their family stories began.
“I think so many of us going over the bridge just automatically look over and say, ‘Oh, there she is.’ I think when you go over and it’s going to be an empty spot now, there’s going to feel like a void.”
Stories by Eric Conklin
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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.