If this article is going to be so poetic, I'm not sure I can continue reading it. Let's just stop for a moment and remember that the 747's, er, distinctive shape wasn't some designer's fancy, it was dictated by necessity: while it was being designed, Boeing feared that in the near future all (long-distance) passenger travel would be supersonic, so it wanted the 747 to also be attractive as a freighter, so they added the possibility of loading cargo from the front, so the cockpit had to be moved up. Simple as that. Of course, the supersonic revolution didn't happen, instead the 747 ushered in the era of widebody jets, and all the fond memories it created now make it look beautiful to the nostalgic. But in the end, Boeing's engineers were proven right: currently there are around 300 747s still in operation, but only 29 of them are passenger variants.
Ok, moving on...
> Most 747 routes spanned oceans and continents, giving travelers a speedier option than the Queen Mary had across the Atlantic, or the California Zephyr across the West.
You've got your Boeing planes mixed up there buddy! That was the 707, not the 747. The Queen Mary was retired in 1967, and the 747 first flew in 1969, so there obviously was no timespan where the one was an alternative to the other.