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Legendary Ship Won't Be Scrapped Just Yet

SS United States received more than $100K in donations for temporary reprieve
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 2, 2015 1:44 PM CST
Legendary Ship Won't Be Scrapped Just Yet
In this Nov. 22, 2013, file photo, the SS United States sits moored in Philadelphia.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

If you've recently spotted the hashtag #savetheunitedstates, it's not an offshoot of Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign: It's a last-ditch effort to keep the SS United States—once the fastest ocean liner on Earth—afloat instead of becoming scrap metal, the AP reports. And it looks like the Cold War-era ship is indeed getting a temporary stay, with the nonprofit conservancy that oversees it announcing Monday it's raised $100,000 from supporters around the world determined to keep the ship, currently moored in Philly, out of the hands of a metal recycler.

Even this new cash influx, though, can't maintain the ship forever; the conservancy's board will be meeting later this week to talk about what comes next. "The destruction of the United States would be tantamount to destroying other national monuments like the Liberty Bell or the Statue of Liberty … we must maintain what is good and constant in our past if we are to imagine a better future," says one writer on the ship's testimonials page. That writer's name: President William Jefferson Clinton. (More ship stories.)

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