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Luxury Liner Row Passenger Ships at New York by William H Miller Jr Soft Cover
Luxury Liner Row Passenger Ships at New York by William H Miller Jr
Soft Cover
96 pages
Copyright 1981
CONTENTS
I Early Morning Arrivals Page 4
Il At the Dock Page 12
Ill. Across the Rivers Page 44
IV. Summer Days Page 54
V. Keeping Them Fit Page 60
VI. All Ashore Page 70
VII. At Noon, Our Position Will Be Page 80
VIII. The Present Fleet Page 92
INTRODUCTION
New York was once the busiest ocean liner port in the world. The grandest and fastest liners called here, lining the docks and landing millions of passengers. In fact, it was as if a passenger ship did not reach full baptism until she called at the Port of New York.
In earlier years, the area witnessed the mighty sail ships, those magnificent and majestic clippers, docked along South Street before darting off for China tea or gold in California. Then, the clipper ships turned to steamers, fine mechanisms that belched smoke and often had a set of sails just in case. There were the immigrant ships, heavy with souls searching for a new life and sadly, there were the dreary gray troopships of two Great Wars. Hundreds of these passenger ships have come and now, quite bitterly, have mostly gone.
The nineteen-fifties and sixties were the final eras-eras of 8 and 10 liners at one time grouped at "Luxury Liner Row," of special maritime reporters greeting an inbound Hollywood queen or European duchess, of a Middle Eastern sheik playing ping-pong on the QUEEN MARY or of the rich Texan requesting rattlesnake for dinner in the Verandah Grill.
When jet aircraft firmly started Atlantic crossings at the end of 1958, the ocean liner was quite utterly doomed. Of course, there was initial resistance-especially within many steamship board rooms. Miraculously, ships like the expensive Cunard QUEENS lasted nearly another full decade. But, the problems mounted. Passengers were fewer each season, in fact on many larger liners the crew outnumbered the paying guests. Profits shrunk and the great ships themselves grew tatty. One by one, they dribbled off to other runs, mostly to the cruise trades, or more likely to the junkyards of Europe and the Far East.
In the mid-nineteen fifties, over 60 liners regularly served New York. Twenty years later, it was less than 12. These survivors-with the exception possibly of the QUEEN ELIZABETH 2-are year-round cruiseships, luxurious floating holiday resorts, that set sail most weekend afternoons for the likes of Bermuda and Nassau.
Now, for the others, that earlier breed, only the record remains. It's well worth another nostalgic look.
William H. Miller, Jr. Jersey City, New Jersey December 1980
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