The USS Olympia, rusting symbol of America’s age of empire
By Chris Manteuffel and Rachel Manteuffel
Washington Post Sunday, November 28, 2010
PHILADELPHIA – The USS Olympia, docked at the Independence Seaport Museum on the Delaware River since 1996, is no ordinary warship. Built for about $2.1 million and commissioned in 1893, the vessel’s got Victorian-era ice machines. She’s got engines the size of 7-Elevens. If they fail, she’s got sails, too.
She’s got a printing press, bathtubs, furnishings fit for a gentleman’s parlor and a prototype of a water cooler called a “scuttlebutt” around which sailors gathered and talked. She’s gorgeous – a priceless artifact of American history, dominating Penn’s Landing.
But pricelessness comes with a price. To keep the Olympia afloat, the Seaport Museum needs $20 million, but it hasn’t come up with the cash. After spending more than $5.5 million in the past 14 years on the ship’s upkeep, appealing to federal agencies for help that isn’t coming and weathering a $1.5 million embezzlement scandal that landed its former director in jail for 15 years, the museum announced in February that it can’t afford further maintenance. Within three years, experts estimate, the Olympia will fall apart. If it isn’t saved, it will be dismantled for scrap or sunk to build an artificial reef off Cape May, N.J.
And with it will go a symbol of America’s age of empire. When the Olympia was built, the United States was redefining itself as a global power, taking on expensive, elective wars in ever-more-distant places. The Olympia was the first step toward an imperial navy, the first steel American warship designed to cross an ocean to antagonize an enemy. If, in 1893, it wasn’t yet clear who that enemy would be, the Olympia’s design flaunted the symbolism of luxury – and the luxury of symbolism. Its grand, open spaces (skylights, a lounge area with a settee and wicker furniture, a piano) equipped sailors for a splendid little war of choice far from their homes and families.The admiral’s cabin had a china cabinet. This was a ship befitting the world power that the United States wanted to be.
The Olympia wouldn’t have to wait long for a trial run. The USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor in February 1898, and though the cause was unclear, popular opinion blamed Spain. Ten days later, an ambitious young assistant secretary of the Navy named Theodore Roosevelt – whose boss, Secretary of the Navy John Long, had taken the day off- seized the opportunity to put the Navy on war footing. Roosevelt ordered Commodore George Dewey, aboard the Olympia in Hong Kong, to attack Spanish ships at their port in Manila, capital of the Philippines. That April, the Spanish-American War began.
From the stately Olympia, Dewey fought a battle as much about optics – shock and awe – as firepower. The hapless Spanish navy had gone about a year without firing its guns and stayed anchored throughout the fight. Though Dewey was numerically matched by Spain’s fleet, he took only six hours to sink it, including a three-hour break for breakfast. He even ordered that the wooden paneling on the Olympia, an enormous fire hazard, remain in place during the battle. While 161 Spaniards perished, one American sailor died (of sunstroke).
With news of the amazing victory, Dewey was feted in New York, where a temporary arch in his honor was erected in Madison Square. But back in Manila, the land war had just begun. After defeating the Spanish, U.S. troops stayed in the Philippines out of concern that Filipinos were not ready to build their own democracy. Insurgents fought a guerilla war to get the Americans out as Washington resisted granting the country colonial status, statehood or independence. The insurgency intensified. More than 4,000 Americans were killed by guerrillas or disease, and one soldier was court-martialed for waterboarding.
Mark Twain called the conflict a quagmire. Rudyard Kipling wrote of such colonial struggles as “The White Man’s Burden.” An Army major described Filipino Muslims for a journal back home: “The only question with the average Moro is when he can kill a Christian. It is never a question of whether he will do so or not. . . . The Moro is a born fanatic.” In 1898, the United States annexed the Philippines but didn’t want to make its residents U.S. citizens or leave the country in chaos. America did not withdraw until 1946.
In 1905, seven years after her victory in Manila, the Olympia became obsolete when the British Dreadnought was launched – a faster, larger warship that carried more guns. The Olympia didn’t see combat again until World War I; while newer American battleships fought the Germans, she engaged a lesser enemy emerging in Russia: the Bolsheviks.
When the Olympia returned home in 1921, the United States was no longer the little country with the big battleship. It was a world power, vying with Britain for the largest navy in the world. In 1893, the Olympia symbolized American imperial ambitions. When she was decommissioned three decades later, she had seen that dream come true.
Ever since, the ship has been a living monument to American greatness abroad – a monument that in 2010, we can no longer afford and that may be turned into scrap.
Chris Manteuffel is an engineer for a government contractor in Springfield. Rachel Manteuffel is on the staff of the editorial department of The Washington Post.
Spanish-American warship spared, at least for now
By Edward Colimore 18 November 2010
Inquirer Staff Writer
The Olympia – last surviving warship of the Spanish-American War of 1898 – may still be scrapped or face a watery grave as an artificial reef off Cape May without money for restoration.But the Penn’s Landing attraction will not close as originally planned Monday after the Independence Seaport Museum’s decision, announced late Wednesday, to fund interim repairs.
The Olympia will continue its daily visiting hours through Dec. 31, then move to a three-day schedule through March 31 while its fate is pondered.
The museum plans to hold a summit early next year with the Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command, National Park Service, and Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission to determine what steps can be taken to save the ship.
The summit will bring together leaders from historic-preservation agencies, maritime museums, government, economic development, and tourism as well as representatives from the Friends of the Cruiser Olympia and potential funders.
“I’m thrilled that we are able to keep the ship open to the public,” said Capt. John J. Gazzola, the museum’s president. “The museum, its board, and our partners are working together in exploring options for the Olympia.”
The museum’s statement said it had “reevaluated the decision to close the ship to the public after funds were made available to make interim repairs as needed.”
“Although this maintenance will allow the ship to remain open to the public, these short-term measures do not resolve the ship’s need for more extensive repairs.”
The museum board authorized the funding for repairs as needed, said Hope Corse, a museum spokeswoman. The amount had not been determined, she said.
“It’s a patch job – a hole here, a hole there,” she said. “We’re figuring out what will be needed.
“We don’t have the capability to take on a whole repair job. We’re doing the patch jobs to assure that the ship can remain open.”
The National Historic Landmark ship is expected to return to its regular daily schedule of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. after March 31.
The decision to fund interim repairs “doesn’t take reefing or scrapping off the table,” Corse said. “This gives us more time while looking for a solution.
“This is a bigger problem than the museum. A lot of people are involved with this ship, and we can benefit from their expertise. That’s why we put together a summit.”
The Olympia is best known for its role at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, when Navy Commodore George Dewey stood on the bridge and uttered the famous words, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.”
The ship spent World War I in the Atlantic Ocean and later brought home the remains of the Unknown Soldier from France in 1921.
But the deteriorating Olympia has faced an uncertain future in more recent years because of the millions of dollars needed to restore it.
The vessel’s time “can still run out,” Corse said. “We’re looking at very big repair numbers.
“Unless someone steps forward with that money, time will run out. The museum can’t do this indefinitely.”
Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20101118_Spanish-American_warship_spared__at_least_for_now.html#ixzz15dvIgTvh
Commodore Dewey's flagship and veteran of 62-years of military service across two centuries may now be scrapped due to economic reasons.
November 13, 2010 By Christopher Eger of Suite101.com
The USS Olympia museum is set to close to the public on November 22, 2010. The next tours of her could possibly be only by wreck divers off of the New Jersey Coast as a best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that she either sinks at her moorings in downtown Philadelphia or is to be cut up for scrap.
History of the USS Olympia
The USS Olympia carried Commodore Dewey during the pivotal Battle of Manila Bay in 1898. Her captain at the time, Captain Charles V. Gridley was the infamous "You may fire when ready Gridley" often quoted by biographers of Dewey. She was ordered from Union Iron Works in San Francisco just a generation after US Civil War in 1888 for the princely sum of $1,796,000. Commissioned on February 5, 1895. When she raised the US flag she was one of the most modern protected cruisers afloat during the Spanish American War. When ready for service she packed nearly a thousand tons of coal into her bunkers to feed six steam boilers generating 17,313 hp to the shafts that would propel the 5,870 ton leviathan at speeds of up to 22.2 knots. Armored with between two and five inches of steel belt to protect her, she carried four 8-inch guns, ten 5-inch guns and numerous smaller 6-pounders, 1-pounders and early Colt machine guns which were manned by her 33 officers and 378 enlisted men. For a period she was the largest and best equipped US-warship in the Pacific.
Former Regan-era Secretary of the Navy John F Lehman states that, "The Olympia is not just a historic warship. It was an engineering marvel for its time”. It was one of the first naval combatants to have electricity and a powered-steering gear. The cruiser was part of a program of ships for the “New Navy” of the 1880s and 1890s, designed to correct the deficiencies of a weakened and neglected naval force. Its innovative design included high-speed engines (Olympia was said to be the second-fastest ship in the world at 22 knots), modern armament, and armor shielding that protected the engines and the magazines".
World Wars and Retirement
She fought not only in the Spanish American War (1898-1899) where she was the flagship of Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron and best remembered for but in both World Wars as well. In World War One she was obsolete and over twenty years old but she dutifully patrolled the East Cost for German raiders and escorted the US-fleet to Russia during the Allied Intervention. She was rearmed with ten modern 5-inch 51-caliber naval rifles and repainted "battleship" haze gray. She returned from Europe carrying the Unknown Soldier from France to his final internment at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Reclassified as an auxiliary relic with pennant number IX 40 in June, 1931 she spent the Second World War as a barracks ship and was retained on the naval rolls, completing her 62nd year of service before being entrusted a non-profit organization in 1957 for use as a floating museum.
Ultimate Fate in Jeopardy
Even though the one of a kind ship is on the list of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania, the National Register of Historic Places, is the oldest steel-hulled American warship afloat, the very triple-expansion engines inside her hulls are the are Historic Engineering Landmarks, she is a National Historic Maritime Landmark and is in “Official Project” status of Save America’s Treasures program, she appears to be doomed. The museum has notified the US Navy that it will no longer be able to maintain the century-old relic and plans to relinquish its ownership of the ship which it has maintained since 1957.
The organization Friends of the Cruiser Olympia (http://cruiserolympia.org for more information contact Info@CruiserOlympia.org) is trying to raise money for preservation of the ship. The group got its nonprofit status this month and has begun receiving pledges and interest from individuals and corporations. The organization need is to raise $2.5 million by January 2011 simply to take custody of the ship and begin initial work. The Friends of the Olympia may be all that the treasured warship has between her and the deep blue sea.
Read more at Suite101: The USS Olympia under Attack by Economy http://www.suite101.com/content/the-uss-olympia-under-attack-by-economy-a308356#ixzz15GKdeySO
Changing Skyline: Master plan for riverfront nearly ready
By Inga Saffron – The Philadelphia Inquirer 20 October 2010
Inquirer Architecture Critic
It’s been almost a decade since Philadelphia started a long-overdue conversation about transforming the vacant acres along the Delaware River into a vital urban neighborhood. Yet, other than a single, suburban-style casino and some lonely high-rise condos, little change is visible on that bleak, postindustrial landscape.
The city now appears ready to stop talking and start doing.
After four decades of false starts and scattershot projects, consultants are putting the finishing touches on a detailed and focused master plan that will provide Philadelphia with step-by-step instructions for reinventing its waterfront. Now in its next-to-last draft, the plan was presented Tuesday night to neighborhood groups for what officials hope will be the final round of discussion.
Based on a presentation I saw last week, the most striking thing about the emerging master plan is the modesty of its ambition. At the same time, the proposals, even in their current rough form, appear more attainable than schemes floated in the past.
And that is mostly as it should be.
Gone are the 50-story towers that were once expected to form a spiky stockade along the six-mile length of the central Delaware, from Allegheny Avenue in the north to Oregon Avenue in the south. The plan, unfortunately, no longer maintains any pretense that the money or political will exists to fully cap the I-95 trench that brutally cuts off Philadelphia’s downtown from its founding river.
Instead, the planning team, led by the same two firms that laid the groundwork for New York’s successful Battery Park City, envisions a waterfront dominated by rowhouses and mid-rise apartments, even on the previously sacrosanct Penn’s Landing site. It would probably take 30 to 50 years for the proposed housing to fill in the waterfront’s many blanks.
Despite that lengthy time frame, the planners are urging the city to invest now in a few high-impact infrastructure projects that would set the stage for private development. The most dramatic is a large, landscaped deck that would slope from Front Street down to the river, between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, extending the existing I-95 cap over Columbus Boulevard.
The planning team also wants the city to banish concerts and other entertainment from both Penn’s Landing and Festival Pier, so that those two key sites at the heart of the waterfront will be more marketable. A new, 5,000-seat venue, probably open-air, would be built as a replacement for the Great Plaza in a semi-industrial area just off I-95′s Girard Avenue interchange.
While the planners would reserve some land at the north and south ends of the central Delaware for industry and big-box retailers, they expect the waterfront to evolve into a grid of streets that resembles Center City in their mix of uses and their variety of building types.
Many of the proposals in the master plan grew out of the ideas formulated by PennPraxis in 2007 after a series of citizen-driven brainstorming sessions. Like PennPraxis, the planning consultants suggest that the city can make the barren waterfront more livable by creating a necklace of 10 Rittenhouse Square-size parks at half-mile intervals. The biggest, and potentially most transformative, of those parks would become the centerpiece of a residential development on Penn’s Landing.
“They should get kudos for taking a policy document developed under the Street administration and elevating it to a high level under the Nutter administration,” said PennPraxis’ Harris Steinberg.
All 10 parks proposed in the master plan would eventually be linked by a recreation trail along the river’s edge and a separate bike path on Delaware Avenue. The planners acknowledge, however, that it is still not clear how the city will compel private owners to let the trail run through their properties. They are recommending that the trail setback vary in width, from 35 to 100 feet, depending on the size of the property.
Unlike the strategies formulated by the administrations of Ed Rendell and John Street, the new master plan is not dependent on a signature project to jump-start development. Mayor Rendell was convinced a shopping mall on Penn’s Landing would bring the waterfront to life, while Mayor Street simply invited developers to make proposals for the site.
The last time Philadelphia undertook a serious master plan was in 1982, and the city was still convinced that the waterfront was the perfect spot for unwanted industrial uses. In commissioning a team of professional planners, architects, and economists to reexamine the area, the Nutter administration has returned to a more painstaking, research-based approach.
For example, the planning team – led by Cooper, Robertson & Partners, Olin, and KieranTimberlake – decided to cap building heights at eight stories after their economist, John Alschuler, concluded that the Philadelphia market is not capable of filling up dozens of skyscrapers. They believe the area around the Piazza at Schmidt’s development in Northern Liberties, with its mix of rowhouses and apartments, provides a good model.
To make the six-mile stretch of riverfront more manageable, the planners divided the area into five development clusters. The team concluded that the seven-acre Festival Pier has the most potential and should be targeted first for development.
Not only is the site city-owned, it is one of the few spots along the waterfront that feels fully connected to Center City, said Alexander Cooper, the New York planner who worked on Battery Park City. Located at the foot of Spring Garden Street, Festival Pier has street frontage on Columbus Boulevard and faces a row of old warehouses. It is just a block from the Market-Frankford El station.
While that proposal was a no-brainer, some people may be surprised by the team’s plans for Penn’s Landing, which has long been seen as a purely recreational space. To activate the 13-acre site, the planners say it needs to be filled with a dense mix of housing, cultural uses, and shops. “I don’t know why people have gotten Penn’s Landing so wrong for so long,” Cooper marveled.
The planners recommend inserting new buildings on almost every available scrap of land at Penn’s Landing. The structures would be arrayed around the sloping park, as well as the existing boat basin, as far south as South Street.
To make the development possible, they propose tearing down the ungainly scissor ramps between Market and Chestnut Streets, which block views to the river. They would reroute buses along Dock and Front Streets. They also recommend building a new pedestrian bridge from the pier where the Chart House is located to South Street.
The success of the plan, the team members acknowledge, is dependent on the city’s ability to jump-start development with the targeted infrastructure improvements. None will be cheap, and the city will have be creative in raising money for the projects.
It’s the consultants’ job now to provide a detailed to-do list for accomplishing the work. The final draft of the master plan is due in December.
And then the city will have to show it can do more than talk about waterfront development.
The Olympia may be headed to a watery grave
Published August 22, 2010- The Philadelphia Inquirer
John F. Lehman is a former secretary of the Navy
A few months ago, one of our nation’s most famous landmarks was deteriorating badly. Independence Hall had a roof leak and needed numerous expensive repairs. The city’s historical commission met in April with the National Park Service to determine a course of action and on June 9, the park service announced that $4.4 million would be provided for a restoration of Independence Hall. The funding came from the stimulus bill.
A few short blocks from Independence Hall there is another icon of American history in desperate need of restoration.
The USS Olympia is moored at Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River and is one of several historic vessels at the Independence Seaport Museum. The ship gained its place in history serving as Commodore George Dewey’s flagship in the Battle of Manila Bay in the opening days of the Spanish-American War. It was from the deck of the Olympia that Dewey uttered those famous words “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.” With these words, the attack on the Spanish fleet was launched and, within six hours, Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron had sunk or captured the entire Spanish Pacific fleet and silenced the guns on shore in Manila.
America’s victory in the Spanish-American War was an important event in U.S. history, marking the beginning of the nation’s emergence as a world power.
The Olympia saw additional service in the years after the Spanish-American War and had the honor of bringing home the remains of the “Unknown Soldier” from World War I in 1921. It was decommissioned Dec. 9, 1922, and was preserved by the Navy until 1957, when the ship was released to the Cruiser Olympia Association and became a museum open to the public in Philadelphia.
In the years since, the city and private organizations have funded the Olympia’s maintenance and its operation as a museum, but now the ship is in need of substantial restoration. The Olympia has been in the water continuously since 1945, and the hull has rusted to the point where the ship is in danger of sinking.
The current owner, the Independence Seaport Museum, can no longer afford the upkeep on the ship, and it is scheduled to close in a few months. The plan now being discussed with the Navy is to close the ship Nov. 22 and remove it, towing the vessel either to a scrap yard or out into the Atlantic Ocean to be sunk as part of a barrier reef off the coast of Cape May.
Yes, incredible as it may seem, that is the fate being contemplated for the Olympia, the oldest steel-hulled warship afloat and the only naval vessel from the Spanish-American War still in existence.
Why is the Olympia worth investing $20 million to $30 million in private or taxpayer funds? Because preserving this nation’s history is important to future generations.
The Olympia is not just a historic warship. It was an engineering marvel for its time. It was one of the first naval combatants to have electricity and a powered-steering gear. The cruiser was part of a program of ships for the “New Navy” of the 1880s and 1890s, designed to correct the deficiencies of a weakened and neglected naval force. Its innovative design included high-speed engines (Olympia was said to be the second-fastest ship in the world at 22 knots), modern armament, and armor shielding that protected the engines and the magazines.
When the Olympia was in danger of heading to the scrap heap in 1996, the Independence Seaport Museum stepped up and accepted responsibility for the ship. However, the museum can no longer maintain it. Now, the U.S. public needs to stand up, the same way it stood up for Independence Hall.
For the last six months, former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon and others have been putting together a plan to secure funding for a restoration of the Olympia and its possible relocation. The Independence Seaport Museum has had the ship’s hull surveyed and repair plans have been drawn. The dredging necessary to remove this delicate structure from Penn’s Landing could start soon after the funding is identified.
I believe the Obama administration should dedicate stimulus funding for the Olympia’s restoration. This is the kind of “shovel ready” project that could be launched in a matter of weeks. Funding this project would not only preserve a National Historic Landmark but would also create much-needed employment in the region.
Like Independence Hall, the USS Olympia deserves to be restored and maintained, and this is certainly a legitimate role for the federal government.
Efforts in Philadelphia to Save Showpiece Ships
By Bill Marsh- New York Times Published: August 18, 2010
PHILADELPHIA — They made an impressive display of America’s seafaring might, the aging maritime stars moored along both sides of the Delaware River.
The battleship New Jersey, from World War II, is one of three historic ships facing hard times in the Philadelphia area.
The cruiser Olympia, from the Spanish-American War, is a National Historic Landmark, but its future is uncertain.
There is the 1892 cruiser Olympia, the oldest steel warship afloat, whose guns and those of the ships it led blasted away a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, announcing America’s arrival as a naval power. The ocean liner United States still holds the record for fastest westbound trans-Atlantic crossing. And the nation’s most decorated battleship, the World War II-era New Jersey, repelled swarms of enemy aircraft.
But to their devoted keepers, the state of the historic trio is a depressing comedown from past glories. The ships are struggling in a world of threadbare private support and unpredictable government grants. Two of the three have barely avoided closing, or worse, with cash infusions that buy time but fall far short of saving them.
The most endangered, the Olympia, a National Historic Landmark, needs $10 million for hull repairs or it could go to a watery grave within three years, inspectors say. The owner, the Independence Seaport Museum, may close the ship this fall and dump it at sea to make an artificial reef. The museum and its ships have drawn about 90,000 visitors annually.
The hollowed-out United States has been rusting downriver since 1996, awaiting its last voyage to the scrapyard. A Philadelphia philanthropist, H. F. Lenfest, donated $5.8 million in June to buy the ship for a conservancy, which is pursuing development schemes, but the effort faces long odds.
The battleship New Jersey, docked in Camden, is in good shape physically, but it was nearly forced to close this summer after the State of New Jersey threatened to cut off $1.7 million in financing, about half its budget. Its paid staff was cut to 11, from 58 people four years ago, who oversee 250,000 visitors yearly.
Creative fund-raising is a priority. Jim Schuck, the ship’s president and chief executive, said that a line of Battleship New Jersey wines — a “battleship red” and “battleship white” — had sold 1,500 bottles in its first two months. A battleship beer is coming.
Many of the 100-plus historic Navy ships in American ports are in need of money. The Olympia may be the most important of those, said Jeffrey S. Nilsson, the executive director of the Historic Naval Ships Association.
The cruiser is a bridge between the great sailing ships and the advent of steam power. It is the last American warship to have both masts for sails and smokestacks to vent its muscular steam engines, which could burn through 20 tons of coal an hour.
Fixing the Olympia amounts to a roof and basement job. Leaks in decks have been patched in 1,200 places. About 70 tons of concrete poured over the original Douglas fir deck to seal it must go; then all of the wood must be replaced. Floating steel museum ships should be dry-docked every 20 years for maintenance; the Olympia has been marinating in the Delaware without ever drying out, since 1945.
It is loaded with original features in good condition. Its innovative engines, with their triple-piston steam loop, look ready to roar anew. The Olympia was the first American warship equipped with refrigeration, which put an end to rampant food poisoning of sailors. The admiral’s richly appointed rooms are intact and polished.
“The aesthetic they were going for was a gentleman’s smoking room in London — overstuffed chairs, very dark wood — that feeling of empire,” said Jesse Lebovics, the Olympia’s chief caretaker.
James W. McLane, a member of the museum’s board, said several groups were interested in restoring the ship but might not have the needed money. “We’re open to other people coming forward, but we’re running out of time,” Mr. McLane said.
Downriver, a conservancy dedicated to restoring the ocean liner United States is negotiating to buy the hulk from the Norwegian Cruise Line with $3 million from Mr. Lenfest, a former cable television mogul. Another $2.8 million should cover about 20 months of maintenance while the conservancy tries to find someone to develop the ship, perhaps as a floating hotel or casino.
Mr. Lenfest has a personal tie to the 990-foot ship, which was launched in 1952. Some of its watertight doors may have been built by his father, a naval architect, at his machine shop. Conservancy staff members are looking for those doors; the ship was stripped down to its structure by its various owners. Some saw its potential as merely scrap, and lots of it: at 990 feet, it is longer than any building in New York is tall, save the Empire State and a few spires.
The New Jersey has about a year to operate before it will require a cash infusion from its namesake. The United States has about two years to get a plan financed. The Olympia is not as lucky. Its owner says it will close to the public by Nov. 22. There is no viable plan to save it.
OLYMPIA under sheer legs in San Francisco 1895
PS: There is a plan and we are busy working to make it happen! Unfortunately, the author of this article never contacted us for comment before the article went to press. We have contacted him to make him aware of our group and it’s efforts.
Nobody Asked Me, But. . .The Olympia Needs Our Help
Excerpted from the US Naval Institute Proceedings, July 2010
Today, the protected cruiser Olympia (C-6) wallows off the Philadelphia waterfront, ready to sink. The Independence Seaport Museum, steward of this century-old vessel, a National Historic Landmark since 1964, is trying to recover from years of mismanagement and corruption. But reforms may have come too late.
Launched from San Francisco in 1892, the Olympia is one of the world’s last examples of late-19th-century warship construction. A technological marvel in her heyday, the ship’s vertical reciprocating steam engines earned her a spot on the list of National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks in 1977.
The Olympia symbolized America’s emergence as a global power after serving as Commodore George Dewey’s flagship during the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay. In the closing days of World War I, the ship dabbled in expeditionary warfare, landing U.S. troops in Russia. She stood by in 1921 as General Billy Mitchell used rickety aircraft to help usher in the age of naval aviation, and later that year the old veteran transported the remains of an unknown American Soldier from France for interment in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
With neither funds nor a sponsor, this irreplaceable piece of Navy history may be sent to an ignominious grave as an artificial reef.
The Olympia was a successful museum vessel, at least according to the numbers. More than 100,000 visitors annually paced the same decks where Dewey uttered the immortal fighting words, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.”
In 1996, the museum, flush from a six-year $15 million capital campaign, took control of the Olympia. The future looked bright. But now, 14 years later, the nearly broke museum is giving up the distressed vessel, claiming her maintenance poses an insurmountable fiscal challenge.
What has been steadily sinking the ship? Not disinterest. Instead, more modern American vices-greed, corruption, and civic disengagement-may have overpowered this monument to the strong, optimistic America of old.
As the Olympia sat deprived of basic maintenance, the Independence Seaport Museum’s chief, John S. Carter, enjoyed perks far above compensation provided at peer institutions. In 2004, his salary exceeded $350,000, and he lived rent-free in a $1.7 million executive mansion bought, maintained, remodeled, and even furnished with museum funds, according to news reports.
The criminal complaint against Carter claimed that by 2006, the museum had been billed more than $335,000 for work on the director’s Massachusetts home. While Carter charged the museum over $280,000 for personal purchases of jewelry, home electronics, designer clothing, and rare artwork, almost $200,000 dollars in maritime artifacts-including a rare print of Dewey-went missing.
Rather than support the Olympia, Carter defrauded the museum of more than $900,000 dollars in a scheme to restore and resell-for personal gain-several antique pleasure boats.
The museum faltered. Between 1999 and 2005, its endowment went from $48 million to a mere $7.7 million. Admission receipts tumbled by half. And all this time, the final arbiters of fiscal management, the museum board, did nothing.
Outside the museum, interested stakeholders did little more. In 2002, after the U.S. Naval Institute’s own Naval History magazine published a devastating article detailing the Olympia’s dire condition, Carter flatly rejected the story in a letter, claiming the account was “somewhat dated and generally uninformed.” This strange rebuttal evoked little response, even though the Olympia‘s decay, well documented by photographs in the magazine, was undeniable.
Carter’s looting of America’s historic treasure continued unabated. Apparently gambling on a federal bailout, the museum director carried on until his house of cards began crumbling in 2005.
In 2007, Carter was sentenced to a 15-year prison term for defrauding the museum of more than $1.5 million over his 17-year tenure.
To prevent this sort of disaster in the future, now-passive stewards of naval legacy must recognize that history is not policy. For particularly egregious cases, normally neutral organizations like the Naval Institute are obligated to champion decaying pieces of maritime heritage. Without advocates, far too few speak for history.
And until alternative stewards like the Naval History & Heritage Command step up to inventory and prioritize critical pieces of naval heritage, the Naval Institute must go the extra mile, highlighting potential problems before they become unsolvable.
Unfortunately, this proposal may come too late to save the Olympia. But the Naval Institute can start embracing a newly active role in protecting critical naval heritage by demanding the Olympia be rehabilitated. This is an investment worth making.
The group Friends of the Cruiser Olympia is raising money to save the ship. To find out more, visit www.CruiserOlympia.org/site/
Dr. Hooper, a regular contributor to
Proceedings, is a San Francisco-based national-security strategist who blogs at
NextNavy.com.
International Stationary Steam Engine Society Bulletin
James Hefner and Harry Burkhardt -March 2010
| U.S.S. Olympia in troubled waters The U.S.S. Olympia (C-6/CA-15/CL-15/IX-40) was built by the Union Iron Works in San Francisco in 1891-1892. Launched in 1892, she underwent fitting out until 1985, and was commissioned on 5 February 1895, Captain John Joseph Read in command.Upon commissioning, the Olympia became the flagship of the Pacific Squadron, during that time, she was referred to as the “Queen of the Pacific.” Captain Gridley relieved Captain Read in 1897, and shortly afterwards Admiral George Dewey became the Commander of the fleet.
On May 28th, the Olympia led the squadron into Manila Bay and destroyed the Spanish fleet in a battle now known as the Battle of Manila Bay. It was from her deck that Dewey spoke the famous words “You may fire when ready, Gridley”, which launched the attack that resulted in the sinking or capture of the entire Spanish Pacific fleet under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón and silenced the shore batteries at Manila, all within the span of six hours. America’s victory over Spain during the Spanish-American War proved that the U.S. was now a world power.
After the war, the Olympia did a variety of duties, including saving lives in Italy and Russia. During the first World War, the Olympia was downgraded to a destroyer escort; her last act in 1921 was to return the body of the Unknown soldier from France to Washington DC. Decommissioned on 9 December 1922, the Olympia was set aside for preservation (and given the number IX-40), and donated to the Cruiser Olympia Society. The Society modified the Olympia back to its 1898 configuration, and opened it to the public as a museum ship.
The Olympia is representative of the pre-dreadnought era of battleship construction. She was larger and faster than the previous generation of Navy ships, being built with a new type of vertical triple-expansion steam engines, the first ever installed in a U.S. Navy vessel. Yet she retained a vestigial suit of sails for emergency propulsion. She was also one of the first naval ships to have electricity, powered steering gear, and a mechanically chilled fresh water dispenser, or “Scuttlebutt”.
Built by Union Iron Works, the two main engines are each rated at 17,313 HP. Steam was supplied by four doubled-ended and two single ended cylindrical boilers.
In addition to the main engines; there are several smaller steam engines on board – a main two cylinder jacking engine, a vertical simplex fire pump, vertical simplex condensate pump, and vertical simplex bilge pump; the pumps being built by the Dow Steam Pump Works. A pair of vertical three cylinder flywheel type vacuum pumps were supplied by Union Iron Works. The circulating water pumps for the condensers consisted of 2 compound engines with off set cylinders, and opposing high speed cranks, which drove two 3 foot impellors inside a brass casing. A Dow condenser pump – a horizontal simplex pump with an air pump on one end, a circulating water pump on the other end, and a steam engine in the middle – was provided for the auxiliary condenser. Another unusual steam pump is a Dow vertical duplex pump used to balance the inner bottom water tanks to trim the ship; as it is equipped with piston valves. A small wall mounted vertical simplex pump was used to pump out the engine wells and coal bunkers. Also still mounted on the smokestack are a K&F steam whistle and a fog horn.
Olympia is a National Historic Landmark, a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is part of the Save America’s Treasures program. The Olympia is also the oldest steel floating warship in the world. But, after 50 years of being afloat since its last drydock, it is need of major repairs to its hull; the cost of those repairs alone were estimated at $30 million.
Faced with mounting debts, the Cruiser Olympia Society merged with the Independence Seaport Museum on January 1, 1996. The museum established the Michael Borsuk Memorial Fund (named for a member of the Living History crew who passed away in June 2000), but apparently the money coming in could not keep up with the ship’s maintenance.
A number of individuals are in the process of forming a non-profit organization to in order to take over the ship, get her hull work completed, and raise the necessary funds for other capital projects over the next several years. They have a non-profit incubator (through a local university) who is willing to help in setting up the necessary non profit, and monitor the group for a year or more to make sure everything is being done right. The group is currently asking for e-mails of support; they can be sent to Info@CruiserOlympia.org They are hoping for a thousand e-mail of support, which will prove to the incubator that the project has public support.
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