The owners decided to leave it there rather than let it be sunk by German submarines. When World War II began, the Normandie was docked in New York harbor.
With scant second- and third-class accommodations, the ship lost many passengers to its competitor, the RMS Queen Mary.) The Normandie’s arrival in New York in 1935. (The Normandie was really built for first-class passengers. The ship was launched in 1935, in the middle of a global depression, and never achieved the financial success its owners planned on. Rumpf menu collection, New York Public Library).īut like that other great luxury liner, the RMS Titanic, the Normandie was fated to meet repeatedly with bad luck and a short life. (Wikimedia Commons)Ī menu from Grand Salon dining room of the SS Normandie. The grand dining room of the ocean liner SS Normandie. Photos of its rooms hint at some of the lost glamour of this ultra-luxury liner. Its elaborate dining halls, lounges, and swimming pool were designed and built on a scale never before seen. The ship represented the best of French design as well as engineering - it featured innovative turbo-electric engines and a revolutionary hull design.
Sadly, that didn’t prevent her from meeting a cruel fate. The SS Normandie was the most luxurious ocean liner of its day.
