I have written a number of times, in this space, about the S.S. United States, the legendary ocean liner.
I also wrote about the ship in my book about early television. The last telecast of Your Hit Parade's 1951-1952 season originated from the ship. Though my mother did not know it at the time, the telecast from the United States would be her last appearance on the program.
The broadcast from the ship aired on June 28, 1952, on NBC. This was five days prior to the United States' maiden voyage--from Pier 86 in New York Harbor, to Southampton, England. The voyage began on July 3, 1952, seventy years ago today. The ship arrived in England on July 7th.
The United States was in service from 1952 until 1969. The liner has been docked on the Philadelphia waterfront since 1996--in disrepair, and having been stripped of its interior fittings (in the 1980s and 1990s) prior to being taken to Philadelphia. Despite its disrepair, the ship remains, in person, an astonishing, and beautiful, sight. At 990+ feet, it exceeds, by more than one hundred feet, the length of the Titanic.
In 2011, the United States was acquired by the S.S. United States Conservancy, a group devoted to the ship's history, and preservation. The purchase was made possible by a substantial grant from the noted Philadelphia philanthropist H. F. "Gerry" Lenfest. Mr. Lenfest died in 2018, at age 88.
The first photograph, below, was taken in New York, the day the United States began its maiden voyage.
The next photograph was taken the week before. It is of an NBC cameraman, his camera trained upon the ship;
it is one of many photographs my mother was given in 1952--many of them rehearsal photographs--related to
the season-ending Hit Parade broadcast.
Lastly, the photograph below is of the United States on the Philadelphia waterfront. I was given a tour of the ship in the fall of 2000, by a representative of the ship's then-owner, and was accompanied by Philadelphia-based photographer and artist Jenny Lynn (referred to in a recent post), who took many photos during the tour, including this one.
(Photograph of the United States, maiden voyage, © UPI/Corbis-Bettmann; photo of NBC cameraman and ship, 1952, taken by a Hit Parade photographer; 2000 photograph of the United States, © Jenny Lynn)
