By Paul Stipkovich, SS United States Conservancy New York Chapter Co-Chair
In January, 1959 my grandfather, Nazzareno Reginelli, sailed from New York City to Le Havre aboard the SS United States. This was his first trip back to Europe in nearly three decades and there was only one way he wanted to get there…by way of the world’s fastest ship.
Nazzareno Reginelli at Table 58 with his two table-mates, seated middle-right.
This 1959 eastbound crossing would be my grandfather's fourth trip across the Atlantic since arriving as immigrant in 1921. My grandfather left Italy a farmer and arrived in America and became a cement mason since New York City was expanding ever higher into the sky and out into the boroughs during the Roaring ‘20s. Once establishing himself in New York, he returned to Italy in 1930 to marry and to bring his bride, my grandmother, back the United States to start their family. In the ensuing decades which largely included the Great Depression and World War II, and all the difficulties those world events would bring, my grandparents raised their three daughters in Queens, New York. It wouldn’t be until five years after the war’s end that my grandfather could afford just two 3rd Class tickets aboard the MS Vulcania for his wife and youngest daughter - my grandmother and mother- to return to Italy to visit family. He himself would not have the opportunity to return home for another nine years.
As the 1950s progressed, the US economy would improve, work would be plentiful again and by the autumn of 1958, my grandfather decided that it was finally time for him to return to Italy. Construction in New York slowed significantly during the coldest months of the year so he booked his vacation for the following January/February.
As much as my grandfather loved his native country and culture, he also loved his adopted country. He was always grateful to have been able to raise his family in the country that emerged as a world leader in technology, and in a city that he was proud to have helped build. Always fascinated by engineering and construction, he was so impressed and proud that the USA had built the “World’s Fastest Ship” so that for his first trip back to Europe in nearly 30 years, he could be aboard no other ship.
Though it would have been much easier for him to book passage on a liner with direct service from New York to Genoa or Naples, he booked the SS United States to LeHavre, where he then took a train across France and down into Italy. He would do the same in reverse a month later for his return trip to NYC just so he could sail the SS United States a second time. During that return trip in February the ship encountered some rough North Atlantic seas but he enjoyed it just the same. Of all the trips my grandfather made back to Italy throughout his life, this 1959 trip was the only one he included the actual voyage itself among the highlights of the visit with family and friends.
As a kid, my grandfather would quiz me at the dinner table on interesting and important world facts. It was during these dinner table quizzes that I learned: which three boroughs were connected by the Triborough Bridge; which building was the tallest in the world (and would eventually lose that title to the soon to be completed World Trade Center); the composer of “The Barber of Seville” was Gioachino Rossini (and not Bugs Bunny); that you should never touch the third rail on a subway track and why; how the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started World War I and, of course, which ship was the fastest in the world.
I don’t know who enjoyed these quizzes more, him or me, but it was during the conversations spurred on by these questions that I first learned the significance of the SS United States.