God Save the Queen................

[Rod-64]

Landlocked Queen short of cash
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- The California operator of the Queen Mary has filed for bankruptcy, putting in doubt the future of the famed ocean liner turned tourist attraction, a spokeswoman for the company said.
The move follows a rent dispute between the city of Long Beach, where the ship has been docked for 37 years, and the company that leases the Art Deco treasure that once transported celebrities and politicians across the Atlantic.
Queen's Seaport Development Inc., which leases the ship, filed for Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday, a day before it had to come up with $3.4 million in back rent to Long Beach.
The city, which owns the ship, had threatened to terminate the company's 66-year operating lease if it did not repay what officials said were inappropriate rent credits taken for upgrades to the ship and developing the surrounding area.
The Queen Mary, commissioned by Cunard Line and built in Britain, made its maiden voyage in 1936. It was the choice of entertainers such as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and statesmen such as Britain's Winston Churchill.
The ship was retired from regular service and turned over to Long Beach in 1967.
City officials had hoped to make the ship, part of which is now a hotel, the center of a seaside tourist development in the Los Angeles area. But other attractions never materialized and the ship has struggled to turn a profit.

[TheLurker]

Shi*,
First thing that poped into my mind was this was going to be a thread on the Sex Pistols.
COOL
Maybe a little Anarchy in the U.K Oh well.
:hammerhea

[superdave013]

sorry to hear that The Queen Mary is special to me. I got married on that ship. And during my wedding my grandmother who was 97 at the time told me that was the ship she came to the United States on. I thought that was pretty cool.

[cdog]

A friend of ours parents came over from ireland on that ship back in 1937.
That damm thing is kinda pricy. We had some friends come down from tucson, they paid about 40 something bucks to take the tour and they were dissapointed. After parking, you could have gone to disneyland.

[MsDrmr]

Yeah, I can't believe they are filing bankruptcy on something they charged and arm and a leg just to tour. The New years eve party's were outragous.
But I am also sorry to hear that. Keep us posted on what happens.

[Flyinbowtie]

I was 10 years old when that ship sailed into Long Beach Harbor.
My father was a heavy-equipment mechanic in the Port of Long Beach, and he brought our family down to the shop to watch it come in.
The city paid big $ for the ship, and then docked it to R&R it while the bay was being built where it is now housed.
Dad used to come home from work with all kinds of stories about how dilapidated that ship was. It was a running joke among the workers in the Port about how LBC had purchased a real money pit.
Cunard pretty much stopped doing anything to maintain the ship beyond that which was necessary to keep it moving after they had the city on the hook.
One story I remember him telling was how the painters found that the ship had not been stripped since it was launched, it had just continuously been painted and repainted. The decsion was made to strip the paint down to a point just below the waterline.
As they did so, the ship came up out of the water about a foot, from the loss of weight of all the paint, and then immediately began to sink. The plates and rivets were so rusted that the paint was all that was keeping it afloat.
I suspect that this is one of the reasons that the ship is now sitting in giant concrete V's, and is not even floating.
People who sailed on that ship used to ask my dad where it was while it was
being worked on, and hhe would point it out to them across the harbor. Stripped of it's paint, they did not even recognize it.
We had our senior prom on it, back in 1976, so I guess I' have some connection to it as well.