{"id":471,"date":"2021-08-29T08:59:16","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T15:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/?p=677"},"modified":"2021-08-30T18:02:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T01:02:25","slug":"column-queen-marys-earliest-days-in-long-beach-predicted-its-current-quandary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/news\/commentary\/column-queen-marys-earliest-days-in-long-beach-predicted-its-current-quandary","title":{"rendered":"Column: Queen Mary’s earliest days in Long Beach predicted its current quandary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rapidity and recklessness on the city of Long Beach\u2019s part in acquiring the Queen Mary\u2014the first domino to fall in a chain that continues to this day\u2014was nearly admirable. That is, if you\u2019re an admirer of the old ways of doing business: No cost- or feasibility studies, no community engagement, in fact very little thought. Just pass out the cigars, pour a little whiskey and then fly across the pond and buy a boat.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s only a slight simplification. The Real Estate Research Group conducted a study in 1966 related to shoreline development plans. The study made the vague recommendation that if Long Beach wanted to draw tourists, it should buy a tourist attraction.<\/p>\n

As horrible luck would have it, at about that time Cunard in London announced plans to retire and sell its prized Queen Mary, already showing signs of age at 35 and losing customers to the increasing ease and convenience of trans-Atlantic air flight.<\/p>\n

In Long Beach\u2019s leaders\u2019 plush boardrooms, cigars were lit, whiskey was poured. People we would refer to as \u201cfat cats,\u201d though they may have preferred \u201ccity leaders,\u201d convened as the ship\u2019s sales date approached. They included Mayor Edwin Wade, City Manager John Mansell, Press-Telegram General Manager Sam Cameron, Cadillac dealer and Port Commissioner Bud Ridings and Press-Telegram columnist-turned Assistant City Manager Harry Fulton.<\/p>\n

The men didn\u2019t have time for studies or, for that matter, politics. They decided to buy the Queen Mary and there was no time for chitchat or dealing with the common folk.<\/p>\n

The ship\u2019s sale date \u201cdeveloped so fast we didn\u2019t have time to bring it to the city council,\u201d Fulton would recall. \u201cWe had to act fast or we couldn\u2019t meet the deadlines.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a 1971 report on the machinations of the ship\u2019s sale in the Los Angeles Times, Mansell, on July 14, dispatched a delegation to Sacramento to call on Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh and state Sen. George Deukmejian to lobby for their OK to acquire the Queen. Deukmejian took the matter to Gov. Ronald Reagan, who gave his blessing.<\/p>\n

A week later, without first getting approval from the city council, according to the Times, Mansell sent Vice Mayor Robert F. Crow, along with Cameron, Ridings, Port Commissioner Llewellyn Bixby Jr. and others to London to negotiate the purchase (again without council approval) for the Queen Mary with a bid of (without council approval\u2014as noted, there was no time for such picayune niceties) $3,444,000 (without approval of the State Lands Commission, which was charged with approving purchases along the coast in Long Beach).<\/p>\n

After the deal was sealed, the City Council ceremoniously and unanimously gave its approval.<\/p>\n

The deal was done and excitement grew in Long Beach, the Queen\u2019s near-future port. On Oct. 10, 1967, three weeks before the ship was set to embark on its final voyage, the Long Beach City Council authorized themselves to sail at least one leg of the voyage\u2014not for fun, but for the good of our nation. Mayor Wade stressed the importance of the not-junket: The Queen Mary, he said, will be visited by officials and dignitaries at various ports, cities and nations and it\u2019s important to have city officials there to meet them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch participation is not only of importance to the city of Long Beach and the state of California,\u201d he said, \u201cbut to our nation as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The self-authorized invitation to sail on the Queen was extended to harbor commissioners as well.<\/p>\n

So, the tag-team of luxury cruisers included Vice Mayor Crow flying to London for the first leg as the ship eased away from Southampton on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n

In Rio de Janeiro, councilmen Bert Bond and Paul Deats relieved Crow, who flew home from Brazil while Bond and Deats cruised around Cape Horn to Valparaiso, Chile, where Mayor Wade and Councilman Emmel Sulivan hopped aboard for the last leg of the journey.<\/p>\n

Similarly joining in on the relay were harbor commissioners Riding, William A. Harrington and Lewellyn Bixby Jr. as well as lesser city dignitaries, many of whom jumped aboard at Acapulco for the home stretch as the Queen Mary ended its 1,000th and final voyage to a home it had never even visited before.<\/p>\n

Among the more than 1,000 passengers stepping ashore in Long Beach was Mayor Wade, whose written comments were handed out to the 800 crew members. He assured them that the Queen would be well cared for under the city\u2019s stewardship. \u201cIt is expected that the vessel will have a continued life of at least 300 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Queen Mary at its Long Beach home at Pier J in 1968. Photo courtesy of Long Beach Public Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And, Wade noted that operating a former ocean liner was not the usual function of city government, and as for the manner in which Long Beach became the owner of the ship that would go on to accrue more controversy, corruption and cost than it had ever asked for or deserved, he stated, \u201cIf the city has made errors in protocol or procedures, they were errors of ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the headlong, unexamined rush to buy the Queen Mary, that was Wade\u2019s and his cohorts\u2019 greatest error of ignorance. While they envisioned a tourist attraction that would rival Disneyland and be ready to take on that task for a minimal expenditure, they found a complex host of unexpectedly expensive problems with getting the ship in tourist-attraction condition. It\u2019s a story that would repeat itself decades later: faulty electrical and sprinkler systems, massive structural work necessary, corrosion of the hull below the waterline, rusted smokestacks that had to be removed, new paint, cost overruns at every turn with jobs that were coming in at three, four or more times their estimates.<\/p>\n

In the LA Times\u2019 exhaustive analysis of the ship\u2019s first three years, headlined \u201cQueen Mary Project\u2014A Story of Waste,\u201d lead reporter George Reasons wrote, \u201cThe gallant ship, once a symbol of elegance, has now become a symbol of bureaucratic waste and mismanagement, and the butt of demeaning jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a detailed audit at every aspect of work needed on and around the ship, the Times reckoned the city\u2019s total investment by March of 1971 came to $52,695,735 in improvements, repairs, infrastructure, cost overruns and botched work. And that was in 1971 dollars, long before the word \u201cbillion\u201d became bandied about so cavalierly as it is today.<\/p>\n

And those expenditures were made before May 1971, when the first tourist stepped onto the deck of the ship.<\/p>\n

Since then, millions of people have toured the ship, enjoying an ever-changing array of activities and exhibits, but even in its happiest times, the Queen Mary has never pulled in enough money to make it a stably profitable attraction.<\/p>\n

Further, over the decades, a long string of operators has, to various degrees, mismanaged the vessel, and throughout its 54-year-long stay in Long Beach, it\u2019s received relatively little attention in terms of upkeep to the point of where it\u2019s once again racking up huge numbers in terms of what\u2019s required in the near and long term, with estimates ranging from tens of millions of dollars to keep it from falling apart in the next few years, to hundreds of millions to make it the world-class attraction that Long Beach\u2019s leaders have always desired, but who have done little more than hope and pay.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/lbpost.com\/features\/queen-mary\/a-betrayal-you-cant-even-put-into-words<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the more than 1,000 passengers stepping ashore in Long Beach was Mayor Wade, whose written comments were handed out to the 800 crew members. He assured them that the Queen would be well cared for under the city\u2019s stewardship. \u201cIt is expected that the vessel will have a continued life of at least 300 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":1134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,42],"tags":[84,78,20],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[22],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-local-history","tag-_instagram","tag-queen-mary","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}