Design

There's Actually a Ton of Old Ships Docked in Brooklyn

Regardless of whether a much-publicized liner comes to town, the borough is home to a fleet of old vessels.
Police and fire boats, the Lower Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge are all dwarfed by the Queen Mary 2.AP Photo/Jason DeCrow

An ocean liner—bigger than the Titanic, and so fast that its top speed was classified by the U.S. military—could come to dock in Brooklyn. Turns out it would have a lot of neighbors floating nearby.

Last month, the S.S. United States was staring down the scrapyard, until donors offered more than $600,000 to keep the ship afloat. The New York Times quoted a statement in which one donor declared that scrapping the ship would be “like letting the Statue of Liberty be melted down and turned into pennies.”