A Navy assault ship built with steel from the fallen World Trade Center and named in honor of the city and state that were home to the twin towers is making its inaugural visit there.
The USS New York was scheduled to sail up the Hudson River Monday. The $1 billion ship was built in Louisiana with about 7.5 tons of World Trade Center steel melted down and used in the bow.
As part of its journey, the ship is scheduled to stop when it nears ground zero, where first responders, families of Sept. 11 victims and the public have been invited to watch a 21-gun salute.
Of the 361 sailors serving aboard the ship, around 13 percent are from New York state, which is higher than would normally be the case.
There were many requests from Navy personnel to serve on the ship, which will also be carrying around 250 Marines.
After the ground zero stop, the ship is expected to sail upriver to the George Washington Bridge, where it will turn around and head south to Pier 88, where it will dock. An official commissioning ceremony is scheduled for Saturday.
The New York will remain in the city through Veteran’s Day and then head to Norfolk, Va., for about a year of crew training and exercises.
The ship is 684 feet long and can carry as many as 800 Marines. Its flight deck can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
It was scheduled to be built before the terrorist attacks. About a year later, the announcement came that the ship would bear the name New York to honor the city, state, and those who died.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg boarded the ship in Raritan Bay, off Sandy Hook, New Jersey on Sunday night to watch the Yankees game with the troops.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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Every American should be proud of that ship and as with the rest of the Armed Forces of The United States pray for the safety of our men and women in uniform.
That all said…The United States Navy could have a ship built with steel from the disaster yet the idiots in NYC cannot yet decide what wil built at ground zero eight years later..what a shame. I say go with Donald Trump’s idea of rebulding the towers as they looked before 9/11 (with improvements in engineering and structure). That to me would be a great smack in the face to the savages that destroyed it. I pass there often and it is just a shame to see a lot of activity and nothing really happening!
This is from Wikipedia: Seven and a half tons of the steel used in the ship’s construction came from the rubble of the World Trade Center. The steel was melted down at Amite Foundry and Machine in Amite, Louisiana, to cast the ship’s bow section. It was poured into the molds on 9 September 2003, with seven tons cast to form the ship’s “stem bar” — part of the ship’s bow. The shipyard workers reportedly treated it with “reverence usually accorded to religious relics”, gently touching it as they walked by. Indeed, one worker delayed his retirement after 40 years’ work to be part of the project.
It’s also interesting to note that the first ship with this name was the USS New York, a gondola, built on Lake Champlain in 1776, that participated in the Battle of Valcour Island. Which took place on October 11, 1776, on Lake Champlain in Valcour Bay, a narrow strait between the New York mainland and Valcour Island during the American Revolutionary War. It is generally regarded as the first naval battle fought by the United States Navy.
I meant westwards into Syria.
Does anyone know when it will be docking?