Known as the “Queen of Sea,” the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company Steamship Line operated one of the finest fleets of passenger steamers on the Atlantic Coast and ranked foremost as one of America’s top tourist routes. It was said to be the only line plying between Baltimore, Savannah, and Jacksonville. Home movie aboard the Merchants and Miners Trans Co ... Read More »
Have you wondered where the much-overused phrase “the red carpet treatment” originated? It all started with the 20th Century Limited. The train of tycoons and movie stars. The “Century” was an express all-Pullman passenger train operated by the New York Central nightly from New York to Chicago. From 1938 until the last run in 1968, passengers walked down a crimson carpet ... Read More »
Besides the fabulous Italian ocean liner S.S. REX launched in 1931, there was another S.S. REX. The gambling ship off the coast of California in the 1930s and 1940s. The far lesser (but profitable)REX was operated as a gambling ship off Los Angeles by Anthony Cornero. Gary Grant made a movie in the early 1930s based on the gambling boats. ... Read More »
At the time of their construction, the Manhattan and her sister ship, Washington, also built by New York Shipbuilding Corporation, were the largest liners ever built in the United States, and Manhattan was the first large liner built in the US since 1905. The Manhattan and Washington were two of the few pure liners built by New York Shipbuilding, which ... Read More »
There were a large variety of cruises out of New York in 1933 celebrating the Labor Day weekend. They were designed to fit every kind of pocketbook, bulging or slim. They were aboard grand liners. CUNARD LINE The Cunarder RMS Aquitania offered a week-end to Nova Scotia, leaving New York 9 p.m. Friday and returning 8 a.m. Tuesday, at a ... Read More »
On April 13, 1962, America’s last night boat service ended as the Old Bay Line’s steamers made there final voyages on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay ending service between Baltimore and Norfolk. Known officially as the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, which had come to be known as the Old Bay Line, it had been doing its thing since the ... Read More »
Known as the “Queen of Sea,” the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company Steamship Line operated one of the finest fleets of passenger steamers on the Atlantic Coast and ranked foremost as one of America’s top tourist routes. It was said to be the only line plying between Baltimore, Savannah, and Jacksonville. Aboard the Merchants and Miners Trans Co SS NANTUCKET ... Read More »
In December 1934, the refurbished Earl Carroll Theatre located on the south-east corner of 7th Ave and 50th Street, New York City, opened as the French Casino. This glittering supper club was described by Fortune magazine as ‘a vast scarlet and silver restaurant which, in terraced rows of tables, seats fifteen hundred people without any crowding.’ For a short three ... Read More »
The Paramount Theatre opened in January 1923 as Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre. It was the second largest movie palace in California, San Francisco’s fabulous Fox Theatre was the first. Both were demolished in the 1960s. Elvis Presley appeared in person at the Paramount in the 1950s. Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood were featured on the gigantic screen in “The Girl I ... Read More »
Otto August Kuhler was an American designer, one of the best known industrial designers of the American railroads. His design for the Leigh Valley locomotive is spectacular when it comes to streamlining a locomotive. The 1930s and 1940s were unique when it came to modernizing trains. According to Trains magazine, he stream-styled more locomotives and railroad cars than Cret, Dreyfuss, ... Read More »
The great German liner Bremen, which ran a British blockade, ended her career in a scrap yard. After docking in New York on August 28, 1939, only four days before the outbreak of World War II, Captain Adolf Ahrens of Germany’s North German Lloyd shipping line was faced with a decision. The independent-minded skipper could disobey orders again by allowing ... Read More »
National holidays were celebrated onboard liners and cruise ships with special events and elaborate menus. From Russian Caviar to Filet Mignon to Ice Cup, Independence Gourmandizes. The menus are classics in cuisine prepared onboard and not the fresh frozen cruise meals aboard today’s cruise liners. Here are a number of Steamship Lines celebrating the 4th from the 1900s into the ... Read More »
During the 1930s – businessmen and tourists sailed to Europe from the USA. There were almost daily sailings from New York. French Line offered Cabin Service on the SS Champlain, SS Lafayette, SS De Grasse, and SS Rochambeau. The above schedule and rates give a great indication of what it cost to travel from New York to Europe at the ... Read More »
The GORDON C. GREENE sailed south on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers – from Cincinnati to New Orleans and back. Nearly 70 years ago. When times were much different. The cruise cost $220 or about ten dollars a day Capt. Mary Greene – co-owner of the Greene Line, and for 50 years the only woman pilot on the river. She ... Read More »
Greene Line Steamers originated as a family-owned and operated business established by Captain Gordon C. Greene and his wife, Captain Mary Greene. After working his way from deckhand to captain, Gordon Greene purchased his first steamboat with his own savings in 1890. The last years of the 19th century and first years of the 20th were prosperous for steamship lines, ... Read More »
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