Not wishing to miss out on the action, the S.S. John W. Brown steamed to the foot of Broadway today in anticipation of the annual Fells Point Fun Festival. The festival kicks off at 11 a.m. tomorrow and runs through Sunday.

Started in the mid-1960s when Baltimore’s oldest waterfront community was in mortal danger from highway construction, the festival has morphed into the region’s biggest street festival.

In good weather, more than 400,000 visitors throng Broadway up to Gough St. and the breadth of Thames St., attracted by arts and crafts stalls, carnival rides, live music, puppet shows, classic car displays and, of course, rivers of beer and wine.

Like Fells Point, the J.W. Brown is a survivor. It is one of two still operational Liberty Ships (the other is in San Francisco) that carried cargo and troops during World War II.

Brown is a Baltimore native, launched from the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard on September 7, 1942. Officially it is a floating antique, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Age has wiped away the original moniker of such ships – “ugly ducklings” – owing to their boxy, awkward appearance.

The volunteers who restored and maintain Brown will open it up for public inspection Saturday and Sunday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Admission is $5.

The Fun Festival itself is free. It is sponsored by the Fells Point Preservation Society, who helped beat back the highway those many years ago.