As the storied SS United States was towed down the Delaware River toward the Atlantic (2/19/25), two or three hundred people lined the riverfront greenway at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia to bid it farewell. The ship disappeared around a bend and the audience left. A few minutes later the ship reappeared in the distance as the tugs kept to the channel, and from maybe a mile away the behemoth, already a pale and rusted shell of its former grand self, appeared even more ghostlike and faded. Its trip to Mobile, Alabama, is expected to take two to three weeks. The plan is for it to be rendered environmentally safe (detoxified) before becoming an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico off Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Fair seas!
Author: dgroff
Overheard
“The one thing in my body that I trust are my taste buds.” –Diner to friends at restaurant in Blue Ash, Ohio.
