SS Normandie arriving in New York, June 3, 1935
The SS Normandie took the Blue Riband, an accolade given to the fastest passenger liner with regular service across the Atlantic, from the Italian liner Rex on this, her maiden voyage. Built in Saint-Nazaire, France for the Compagnie Général Transatlantique (CGT), she remains the most powerful steam turbo-electric powered passenger ship ever built. She was also one of the most luxurious ocean liners of the time. During the second world war, she was seized by the US and renamed the USS Lafayette. She caught fire in New York at the site of the current New York Passenger Ship Terminal on the Hudson and was never returned to service.
