Long Beach exploring National Monument status for the Queen Mary

The City of Long Beach has high hopes for the Queen Mary – national monument status.

The Queen Mary, which was built in 1930, is currently a National Historic Landmark, which makes it eligible for certain grants and tax incentives from the National Park Service. But if it were granted national monument status, the federal government would own the ship and be responsible for its repairs and maintenance.

National Monument status is generally granted to "a place of historic, scenic, or scientific interest set aside for preservation," and is generally granted by Congress or the president of the United States.

The stately ship has a storied past, but its future is more cloudy – its most recent operator filed for bankruptcy, so the City of Long Beach took control of it last year.

But keeping the Queen Mary in tip-top shape is a costly endeavor. The city is currently auctioning off the ship's 36-foot lifeboats to nonprofits that would preserve them, and the ship itself is closed until this summer for a $5 million repair and rehabilitation project.