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The S.S. United States was an opulent passenger steamship. Now it might be sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.

  
*Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at a last-ditch move to save the S.S. United States, which still holds the trans-Atlantic speed record...*



By James Barron, Dec. 1, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET

  
A City Council resolution calling on the federal government to intervene to save the S.S. United States is admittedly an 11th-hour move. Gale Brewer, the councilwoman who introduced the resolution, called it a “Hail Mary.”



Its proponents want to keep the ship, which still holds the trans-Atlantic speed record, from being sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef that would become a destination for what James Kaplan calls “scuba-diving tourists.” Kaplan, an organizer of a group to save the ship, wants it towed to Brooklyn and repurposed as a “dynamic use center” in much the same way that other cities have turned former ocean liners into tourist attractions and hotels.



“It’s a crazy idea to sink the greatest passenger ship ever built,” Kaplan said. His group, the New York Coalition to Save the SS United States, promises to exhaust all possibilities “to prevent the vessel from being lost to history.”



Brewer’s resolution asks the federal government to seize the ship and underwrite a move to New York. She appeared with Kaplan and others from the coalition who testified at a City Council committee hearing last month, and, although it will have no practical effect, she hopes that the resolution will go before the full Council on Thursday. The coalition has collected more than 15,000 signatures online for a petition to save the ship.



Dan McSweeney, the coalition’s treasurer, said the S.S. United States had a singularly emotional connection to New York. And the city itself seemed to play at least a supporting role when the cameras were on the ship, as in the 1962 comedy film “Bon Voyage!” starring Fred MacMurray and Jane Wyman.



In other filmed sequences, there were glimpses of busy piers along the Hudson River and an awed sense that might on the water mattered in the days before air travel overtook even a record-setter like the S.S. United States. In a 1950s newsreel, the announcer breathlessly describes how the United States — christened in 1951 — had sailed into New York “surrounded by 100 smaller craft, dwarfed by her length, the equivalent of five city blocks.” It was modernistic and opulent, with boldface-name passengers. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor favored a stateroom known as the “duck suite” for the murals of waterfowl painted on aluminum panels that were fireproof, like everything else on the ship.



But it went out of service in 1969 and was stripped of its grandeur years ago. The ship has spent the last eight months in Alabama, where paint, chemicals and wiring are being removed in preparation for the sinking. The coalition says it will work to establish a monument in New York if the ship ends up in the Gulf.



It belongs to Okaloosa County, Fla., in that state’s panhandle, which paid $1 million for it last year. The sale followed a rent dispute involving the nonprofit S.S. United States Conservancy — which had long owned it — and the company that controls the pier in Philadelphia where it had been docked. Kaplan’s coalition went to court in Florida in April to prevent Okaloosa County from going full speed ahead with the sinking. In August a judge dismissed the case, saying the New York-based group lacked standing to bring it.



“There’s nothing that’s going to stop it from becoming a reef,” said Nick Tomecek, a spokesman for Okaloosa County, adding that the county’s timetable calls for sinking it early next year. “We certainly understand the passions surrounding the history. She’s a magnificent vessel that’s provided a lot of memories for a lot of folks,” he said. But “Okaloosa County owns the vessel, and it has been our intent since the beginning to deploy her as the world’s largest reef.”



Tomecek said that the county has already deployed more than 20 vessels as reefs, providing “a very necessary habitat for marine life while supporting tourism.”



He added: “Those little fishes need some safety, and the food chain goes all the way up. This large vessel will help protect those smaller species but also provide an ecosystem” for larger fish like tuna and marlin.

The New York Times - Will a Once Glamorous Ship Become a Reef in Florida?