Manhattan, NY – The Intrepid, a sprawling aircraft carrier that saw heroic action in World War II and Vietnam, is on its way back to its Hudson River berth after a two-year hiatus.
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It’s three football fields long, 66 years old and serves as home of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, one of the city’s top tourist attractions.
It also displays some of the best-preserved planes of World War II along with the Concorde, the defunct French-British supersonic that frayed the nerves of Queens residents’ for years.
One thing most Americans don’t know, though: The FBI moved its headquarters to the Intrepid right after terrorists struck the World Trade Center on 9/11.
“The FBI came an hour after the second plane hit,” recalled Bill White, museum president. “They shut us down. Hundreds of agents lived there.”
Now, after the warship’s $15 million bow-to-stern restoration – part of an overall $115 million museum and pier renovation – the Intrepid is due to leave Staten Island drydock at 11:30 p.m. Thursday for its home at Pier 86 at W. 46th St.
If an aircraft carrier can get a celebratory parade without ticker tape, the Intrepid will get one as McAllister tugboats guide her up the Hudson. Fireboats will salute with red, white and blue water sprays.
The Intrepid will pass the Statue of Liberty around 12:15 p.m. and pause at Ground Zero around 12:30 p.m. Veterans – many of whom served aboard the Intrepid when she was an active-duty ship – will unfurl a 100-foot American flag in a salute to those lost on 9/11.
The public can view the journey from sites at Battery Park and lower Manhattan.
The carrier will arrive at Pier 86 around 1:30 p.m.
Officials hope that this trip will be a lot smoother than the Intrepid’s embarrassing departure for the overhaul in 2006.
At the time, the 40,000-ton vessel got stuck in the Hudson’s mud and it took a Navy salvage team to free her and at great expense.
The Intrepid was launched in 1943. After the war, it aided in NASA spacecraft recovery, then served in Vietnam.
In 1976, the ship was decommissioned and established as a museum ship by New Yorker Zachary Fisher and the Intrepid Museum Foundation.
Among the legendary planes on display are the TBM Avenger torpedo bomber, which was used by the first President George Bush during WWII, a Navy F-14 Tomcat and an A-12 Blackbird spy plan used by the CIA.
The museum will reopen to the public in November.
maybe we could ask to have it open on chol hamoed
wow its been 2 years? time flies.
A floating tribute to the heroes of America in years past and to our present heroes fighting overseas. PLEASE DO NOT FORGET THEM!!!
As we remember the U.S. S. Intrepid’s service in three wars, remember too the thousands of Americans, including Yidden, who right now are at sea serving to protect our sea lanes, project power in our name and protect us from foreign enemies. May Hashem bless and protect the United States Navy, the United States Merchant Marine, their ships and all those who serve aboard them.
LAST YEAR THEY HAD TROBULE SCHLEPPING IT OUT OF THE PIER. PERHAPS THEY CALL THE CHAVERIM………….BORO PARK POWER IS THE BEST
On Tzom Gedaliah?? Why couldn’t they pick a better day?
dose any body know if it will be open to the public on chol hamoed?
leaving 11:30 pm and arriving 1:30 pm in statenisland? So it will take 22 hours to go a few miles? Is the article supposed to say 11:30 AM AM AM and NOT PM?
Too bad it won’t be open for Chol Hamoed yet. I would go see it again.