We've got a better analogy for the massive cruise ship that's been sitting idle and rusting on the Delaware since 1996: The United States is a trophy daughter, an abandoned child whose father is not much more than a financial custodian, maintaining her room and board, but never visiting, and with little apparent interest in ensuring that she has a productive life.
Meanwhile, there are scores of self-appointed foster parents who have been giving this child what she really needs: love and attention, and a chance for a future.
These "foster parents," many members of the S.S. United States Foundation (www.ssunitedstates.org) have been pouring out their hearts to the Daily News, responding to our recent editorial in which we called the ship the mother of all abandoned vehicles. We also asked why her owner, New Jersey developer Edward Cantor, was dumping it in our city.
Our beef was - and still is - not with the ship, a state-of-the-art symbol of sophisticated maritime architecture, once the fastest cruise ship on the ocean.
Our beef is with an owner who acquired her as a personal trophy, brought her uninvited to Philadelphia, and left her to sit while he tried to force the city to open the Naval Shipyard and have a crew restore her, so he could then transform the ship into a floating casino. The cost of a full-blown restoration, ranging between $200 million and $400 million, has never been raised. Cantor has been mum on any progress he's made. In fact, he's put the ship up for sale, for $23 million.
We wonder if Cantor's ever been on board. Last we checked, he was wintering in Florida.
Meanwhile, the foundation, the ship's self-appointed foster parents, arranged for her to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, with the ultimate goal of achieving National Monument status, a designation it would share with the Statue of Liberty. This would move the ship into the hands of the government, and is probably the quickest route to transforming it into a floating museum.
We support these efforts, and hope Cantor does, too.
Because we still say she should not be sitting rotting, rusting and idle in our backyard. She should be under the care of someone who will give her productive life.
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