When Queen Elizabeth left New York for the final time on Wednesday 30 October 1968 who would have thought that 40 years later – in October 2008 – another Cunard Queen would be coming to the end of her sea life and ending her association with New York as QE2 did on 16 October 2008.
QE2’s first call on Wednesday 7 May 1969 at her second home (perhaps Americans would say it was her first home!) was the last proper and triumphant maiden arrival made by an ocean liner.
For weeks before her American debut New York was ready to welcome QE2 – “Welcome the Queen” signs were in many Fifth Avenue shop windows alongside photographs of the ship. And on the morning just before her arrival American newspaper front pages were filled with aerial images of QE2 taken hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic and broadcasters proclaimed her arrival would be “fit for a Queen”.
Four days, 16 hours and 35 minutes after leaving Le Havre QE2 arrived at Ambrose Light and thousands turned out to welcome the new Queen in New York on 7 May. Mayor John Lindsay boarded the ship from a coastguard cutter outside the Verrazano Bridge along with other civic dignitaries and press for the last leg of her journey and he honoured Cunard by officially proclaiming it ‘QE2 Day’ in New York. It certainly was a tremendous welcome.
Hundreds of small craft including a Chinese junk escorted her to her berth at Pier 92 and helicopters jockeying for space with light aircraft buzzed around her. Ship whistles made a chorus and geysers of water cascaded up from a flotilla of tugs and fire boats. Two RAF Harrier jump jets raised a cheer from British passengers as they screamed in at high speed and then hovered on either side to escort QE2 towards the Statue of Liberty. QE2 made a leisurely entrance two miles up the Hudson north of her pier at west 52nd Street before turning round in mid-river and berthing alongside just after 1500 hours.
During a short ceremony in the Queens Room Mayor Lindsay was presented with a gold medallion by Cunard Chairman Sir Basil Smallpeice to commemorate the ship’s first arrival in the city.
The gold medal, inscribed on one side with an outline of QE2, had caused a little bother, both with the Bank of England and the United States Treasury Department. The first difficulty had been in getting permission from the Bank of England to take gold out of the country. Then Washington had to give permission for the medal to be imported into the United States without being put into Fort Knox along with America’s gold reserves. The letter authorizing the importation was not issued until Mayor Lindsay promised to sign a declaration that he would not melt the medal down for its gold content!
Mayor Lindsay, who claimed “the new Queen is a pride of New York as it is of Britain”, presented Sir Basil with a glass seahorse. Of the arrival welcome, Captain Warwick would later write: “It was a sight and experience which I am sure many more than myself will never forget.”
QE2 remained in New York for two days where various receptions took place on board and many arrival celebration dinners were held all over New York. 1,000 supper dance guests included the Admiral of the Fleet Earl Mountbatten, who was to return with QE2 to Southampton; Mary Soames, the wife of the British Ambassador to Paris and daughter of Sir Winston Churchill; John Freeman, Britain’s Ambassador to America; Lord Caradon, the British Ambassador to the United Nations and John A Roosevelt, son of the late President of the United States. Other ambassadors included those from France, Sweden, the Soviet Union, Ghana and Morocco.
QE2 was the biggest happening in New York and, over the course of the next 39 or so years, she would call there 710 times.
As is always the case, some arrivals and departures are far more memorable than others but perhaps the most poignant arrival occurred on Monday 7 January 2002 when QE2 was the first passenger ship allowed back in New York after the 911 atrocities the previous September. While proceeding up the Hudson QE2 paused opposite Ground Zero and sounded her whistle before Social Hostess Maureen Ryan threw a wreath into the River. It not only signalled that QE2 was back in New York but it was a tribute to what had happened and a sign that routine was returning. In happier times she played a key role in the Statue of Liberty’s 100th birthday celebrations in 1986 and she departed from New York on her 1,000th Voyage in 1995.
On Thursday 16 October 2008, 14,405 days after her first departure on 9 May 1969, her job was done and with nothing else to prove QE2 showed Queen Mary 2 just how to make a farewell and dignified final exit from a City that will always remember her.
