Waterfront vacancy | Scene Through the Lens

A rusted 990-foot cruise ship docked for almost three decades on the Delaware River was towed away last Wednesday leaving a huge gap on the waterfront skyline. The SS United States was such a part of the South Philadelphia landscape the IKEA store across the street had a sign explaining its history on their restaurant’s window.

I first photographed the ship in 1996 when it moved to Pier 82, after spending a few weeks moored farther south at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal. I was back many times over the years, including once in 1999 when got up above the ship’s two funnels.

For a story, I climbed the ladders inside the mast, up to the crow’s nest with Robert Hudson Westover, the founding chairman of the SS United States Foundation in Washington, D.C. one of the first groups to try to save the ship. The crow’s nest was enclosed and even heated back when the ship was in service. But we were climbing still higher, to the very top where the ship’s radar - a relatively new technology in 1952 - was once mounted.

Westover was going up to place an American flag there, at the highest point on the ship. I wanted to make a photo of him doing that, so I had to go ahead, out the hatch first, then scrunch over as far as I could - without falling off (and down six stories!) - to get him, the flag, and the hatch in the picture. And one of the ship’s funnels behind him. It was an amazing view and experience. You can see the mast, still there in a photo I made twenty years later.

You can also see the mast in photos I made last November when the SS United States Conservancy hosted a chartered cruise luncheon to give supporters a closeup look at the ocean liner once known as the “Queen of the Seas.”

Finally, photos by my colleague Tyger Woods of the ship as it left Philadelphia, along with some of mine as spectators watched it pass the Navy Yard headed to the Atlantic Ocean. (And the mast is still there!)

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: