2011 January |

Khedivial Mail Line once operated service between Egypt and New York.

January 30, 2011 By Michael L. Grace Leave a Comment

Khedivial Mail Line once operated service between Egypt and New York. As history records the event in Cairo… here is a blog on Egypt’s once excellent trans-Atlantic steamship service.

SS Mohamed Ali el-Kebir

The original name of the company is unknown but it is thought that it was founded in 1858. The Khedivial Mail Steamship & Graving Dock Co. was formed in 1898 to operate ships and docks owned by various departments of the Egyptian Government, but little is known of the early years of the company or it’s ships.

The new fleet was registered under the British flag and operated passenger and cargo services between Alexandria, Constantinople and Syrian ports and between Suez and Red Sea ports. Later services were extended to Piraeus, Malta, Marseilles and Cyprus. P & O Line took control of the company between 1919 and 1924.

In 1936 the company was re-formed in Alexandria as Pharaonic Mail Line and in 1941 was changed to Khedivial Mail Line. Services from the Mediterranean to Boston and New York started in 1948 and from 1951 calls were often made at Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. A Port Said – Bombay – Karachi service started in 1953.

American Export Lines: The popular “FOUR ACES” – EXCAMBION, EXETER, EXOCHORDA, and EXCALIBUR.

January 28, 2011 By Michael L. Grace Leave a Comment

American Export Lines: A view of one of the popular “FOUR ACES” – EXCAMBION, EXETER, EXOCHORDA, and EXCALIBUR.

(Above: Dining room) These combination passenger-cargo ships carried the American flag to ports around the Mediterranean from their late 1940s launch until the mid-1960s.

(Left to right: Main Lounge and Bar) They carried 124 passengers in First Class and were among the first ships to be completely air conditioned.

They provided excellent American service and were very popular.

(Above: Suite; below: swimming pool) The four sister-ships were built to replace four 1931 ships of the same name which were passed to the US Navy as transports in 1941.

(Top: Buffet on deck; Holiday Magazine advert for Aces) Both classes were known as the “Four Aces”.

The post war ships were also all built as US Navy attack transports, and all were converted and delivered to American Export Lines in 1948.

They operated between New York and the Mediterranean.

Noted industrial decorator Henry Dreyfuss, whose many designs included the “Twentieth Century Limited” locomotive (1938) for the New York Central Railroad, and the “500″ desk telephone (1949), the Bell System standard for 45 years, designed the interiors.

Zalud Marine Corporation executed the design, including joiner work, that included thousands of feet of carpet, specially woven fabrics and an unusual amount of glass.

Exochorda was among the first ships with fully air-conditioned staterooms, many of which were also soundproofed. The ship’s glass enclosed promenade deck featured a built-in swimming pool and play area adjacent to a modern bar and smoking room.

Review: The New York Palace Hotel and Towers. A modern hotel with an historical facade.

January 21, 2011 By Michael L. Grace Leave a Comment

Review: The New York Palace Hotel and Towers. A modern hotel with an historical facade.

The New York Palace possesses a prestigious heritage. More than a century ago, Henry Villard, one of the nation’s most prominent financiers, commissioned McKim, Mead & White to create a residence of singular style. Villard was president of the Northern Pacific Railway. When his railroad empire began to crumble, ownership of the building changed through many hands throughout the century. In 1968, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the complex an historical landmark. Restoration and construction for a new hotel complex was proposed by real estate developer Harry B. Helmsley who constructed the 51-story New York Palace Hotel tower directly behind the original building. The project was designed by architects Emery Roth & Sons and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer in 1977 and completed in 1980. The original building was restored in 2003 and office space was furnished for city preservation group The Municipal Art Society, as part of an agreement to save the building from demolition.

As the building appears today. This is the front of the New York Palace Hotel and Towers.

(Left: Suite in the Palace Towers) After an early January trans-Atlantic crossing from Southampton to New York aboard Cunard Line’s Queen Victoria, I stayed last week at the New York Palace Hotel in the Towers.

Cunard Line should immediately higher the staff/management at New York Palace Hotel and Towers to completely overhaul their rather grim cruise operation.

As for New York Palace Towers, the hotel within a hotel is a sanctuary truly above it all. The hotel is a first class oasis in Manhattan with views of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the New York skyline.

The rooms and suites are elegant – resulting in a chic experience with Manhattan sophistication the order of the day. The views are breathtaking.

The on-site concierge sees that guests have exactly what they need, in the lounge, in the hotel, or anywhere in the city.

Cruising The Past looks at New York debutants aboard the Homeric. With a link to Brenda Frazier and current “bows” in society.

January 21, 2011 By Michael L. Grace Leave a Comment

New York debutante party in the 1950s aboard Home Line’s HOMERIC
dockside.

(Left – Home Lines S.S. Homeric at her New York pier on February 15, 1969 just before sailing to Nassau.)

The SS HOMERIC was used for society events in New York Harbor. The ship was originally the SS Mariposa. She was a luxury ocean liner launched in 1931; one of four ships in the Matson Lines “White Fleet” which included SS Monterey, SS Malolo and SS Lurline. In World War II she served the United States as a fast troop carrier, bringing supplies and support forces to distant shores as well as rescuing persons stranded in foreign countries by the outbreak of war. In 1947 the ship was mothballed for six years at Bethlehem-Alameda Shipyard in Alameda, California. Her engines were overhauled by Todd San Francisco Division. Home Lines bought her and renamed her SS Homeric, sailing her to Trieste for reconstruction to allow 1243 passengers: 147 First Class and 1,096 tourist class. Gross register tonnage increased to 18,563.

Cruising The Past looks at New York society – from Brenda Frazier to today’s debutantes – with an excellent piece by David Patrick Columbia in New York Social Diary.

Debutantes then and now…

by David Patrick Columbia – New York Social Diary

This past holiday season last month in New York also highlighted the longtime annual tradition of the debutante, young women making their “bows” in society. Interest in the ritual has waxed and waned over the past half century. Its purpose has been modified by the liberations but it has hardly gone out of style.

18-year-old Brenda Diana Duff Frazier at the Infirmary Ball, December 1938.

Thanks to George Gurley, writing in the New York Times, about a pretty Johns-Hopkins undergrad from New York named Hadley Nagel, it was a lively topic of conversation at dinners and dances and elsewhere. Ms. Nagel was making her debut at the 56th annual International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf and George’s reportage gave it a substance and an import that many have long felt that it lacked.

Ms. Nagel’s interview assured us that the assumed demise of the debutante ball is premature. For the simple reason that it serves an important purpose, especially nowadays when young women are interested in establishing themselves for their chosen paths, the workplace, and anything else that might be desirable.

Click here to read rest of story in New York Social Diary.

Filed Under: Cruise History, SOCIAL HISTORY Tagged With: CUNARD LINE, david patrick columbia, history cruises, history society, HOME LINES, liners, new york social diary, SOCIAL HISTORY, society

Very rare footage of the MS GRIPSHOLM in the 1920s and Greta Garbo!

January 16, 2011 By Michael L. Grace Leave a Comment

Rare candid moment of Greta Garbo’s departure from Sweden in 1929 aboard the Swedish American Line’s MS GRIPSHOLM. Greta Garbo made her first voyage to the USA on the Drottningholm in 1925. The video of her departure from Gothenburg in this clip, after a brief visit to Sweden.

For the following information we wish to thank Lars Hemingstam and his excellent website on the Swedish American Line – click here to visit.