I believe I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m a big fan of museums. Especially little museums, and especially military museums. I’ve had a lot of fun visiting official Navy museums, like the one at the Naval War College in Newport and the Submarine Force Museum in Groton. (However, I am not biased; I’ve been to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB twice, and loved that both times.)
It isn’t just the official museums I like. I want to get back over to the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg soon. (I know, it is now the “National Museum of the Pacific War”, but I still think of it as the Nimitz Museum.) It isn’t even just the military ones; there’s a whole host of little museums in Houston, for example, that I’d like to visit.
(We visited the San Jacinto Monument a lot when I was a child, but I don’t remember ever touring the battleship Texas. Odd that. I also never got to eat at the San Jacinto Inn during the glory days of that establishment. Not that I’m bitter or anything.)
The purpose of this long digression is to point out an article in today’s LAT (I know, I know, but they come in waves, and the Cudahy articles were actually yesterday; I just didn’t have time to blog them) tied to the battleship Iowa docking in San Pedro.
The basic point of the article is that warship museums may or may not work out. Why? It depends on the location: thank you, Captain Obvious!
I’d suggest both of those are very special cases; San Diego has a strong naval presence, so I’d expect a warship museum to work well there. And the Intrepid is, to my mind, an atypical warship museum, what with the space shuttle and the SR-71 and the glaven and the HEY NICE LADY!
Sorry.
On the other hand, I’m not exactly shocked that the battleship New Jersey in Camden, New Jersey has trouble attracting visitors.
I’d also note Chumlee and Rick have a full work schedule at the shop and can’t be running off to every warship in the country, and the Old Man is probably too grumpy to be a good docent.
Camden NJ is a nightmare, and I’d never take my kids there no matter how cool a museum is. They should move the museum and ship to Cape May, and attendance would soar.
Or to the NJ Shore – those Guidos love them some heavy firepower …
The first draft of that post had a comment suggesting using the New Jersey’s main guns for urban improvements in Camden, but I took it out; I have never been to Camden, and it seemed unfair to say something like that without first hand experience.
I am delighted to hear that I was not that far off target.
Speaking of the Iowa, did you ever see these pictures?
http://scotthaefner.com/beyond/mothball-fleet-ghost-ships/
A bunch of urban explorers sneaked aboard the mothball fleet in Suisun Bay, including the Iowa when it was still there.
Joe:
I had not seen those photos previously. Thanks for the link.
There’s a lot on that site and I haven’t gone through it all yet, but his photos from the abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans are also interesting, if unrelated to the current topic.
The USS Texas has (or at least had, I have been twice), “Hard Hat” Tours. You wear must wear a hard hat, bring a flashlight and you get to go on a guided tour to places in the ship where normal tours can’t go. I remember one place where there were two 2x12s on the deck. The guide said “please walk on the boards only. The deck is rusted through. You will fall several decks down and we don’t have any way of getting your body out.” I recommend it.
Ben:
Interesting. It looks like they were still offering those, at least as of May of this year. I’m guessing the ship’s current issues have made those tours a lower priority.
I would like to take that tour, if they ever offer it again. I even have my own hard hat (left over from taking a hard hat tour of Hoover Dam; an option that went away after September 11th).
Looks like you are too late for the USS Texas. It sprung a leak recently and is closed indefinitely.
I took the Hoover Dam Hard Hat Tour also. It is a huge crime that it is closed due to terrorists. They built the dam with tours in mind!