Queen Mary in Long Beach
After her retirement in 1967, she steamed to Long Beach, California, where she is permanently moored as a tourist attraction, hotel, museum, and event facility. From 1983 to 1993, Queen Mary was accompanied by Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, which was located in a large dome nearby (the dome is now used by Carnival Cruise Lines as a ship terminal, and formerly as a soundstage).
Since drilling had started for oil in Long Beach Harbor, some of the revenue had been set aside in the "Tidelands Oil Fund." Some of this money was allocated in 1958 for the future purchase of a maritime museum for Long Beach.
Read more about this topic: RMS Queen Mary
Famous quotes containing the words long and/or beach:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Across the lonely beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit—
One little sandpiper and I.”
—Celia Thaxter (”Laighton”)