PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — In an order issued Monday, a federal judge sided with Penn Warehousing, ruling that the famed cruise ship SS United States Conservancy cannot remain at the pier in South Philadelphia beyond Sept. 12.
Both parties are involved in a legal tug of war for years.
Penn Warehousing sued the SS US to have the ship removed from the pier. After a lawsuit this spring, a federal judge ordered the ship to be moved by mid-September.
Court documents show that Penn Warehousing warned the Conservancy, which oversees the SS US, that the company was prepared to impose a $3 million fine if the ship was still in operation on Sept. 13.
In a court document, the Conservancy wrote: “Penn Warehousing hopes to bankrupt the Conservancy, whose financial situation Penn Warehousing acknowledges is precarious, and thereby seize the vessel.”
Penn Warehousing says it is losing sales and the fine amounts to lost profits.
The pier owner says a company that would use the pier to bring cars into the port is interested and is also interested in moving the ship.
“While asking the general public for half a million dollars to fund a trip to nowhere, the Conservancy has studiously ignored offers from at least two entities poised to take over the SSUS and remove it from Pier 82 in a timely manner and at no cost to the Conservancy — and in fact to its economic benefit,” attorneys for Penn Warehousing wrote in a court document.
The SS US was designed in the late 1940s. It was intended to move troops quickly in the event of war, but it was not needed and became a cruise ship instead.
“In the beginning, it was the fastest way to get to Europe,” said Susan Gibbs, the conservancy’s president. “It was the fastest ocean liner when there were no alternatives.”
Most of the ship’s interior compartments have been emptied and a maze of asbestos has been removed.
The ship is longer than the Titanic. Its maiden voyage was in 1952 and it cruised the Atlantic for 17 years, carrying presidents, dignitaries and entertainers.
The ship has been sitting idle on the Delaware River waterfront for decades. Attempts to transform the ocean liner have failed.
Conservancy members have previously said that if the ship were to be moved without plans for a new home, it would most likely end up on the scrap heap or sink as part of a reef system.
Joe Holden
