USS New York Personifies City’s Spirit

On Monday morning, the USS New York, a San Antonio-class amphibious dock vessel, sailed into New York Harbor, her ship’s company lining her rails. She paused in the Hudson River opposite the site where the World Trade Center Towers once stood and her gunners fired a 21-gun salute to the fallen innocent victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the police, firefighters and other first responders who ran into the burning Twin Towers even as they collapsed and the Towers themselves. The New York then cruised slowly up the river, executed a graceful turn and came back downriver to Pier 88 on Manhattan’s West Side, where she will remain docked until her commissioning ceremony on Saturday. She will stay moored off Manhattan until Veterans’ Day, November 11, then head to Norfolk, Virginia for crew training and exercises. In about another year she will be ready to go to sea as a U.S. Navy warship.

The New York is a living monument to the fallen Towers—7.5 tons of steel that once went into the structures makes up part of the New York’s bow. In further testament to the spirit that turns this mass of steel and Navy gray paint into a monument to the country and people she serves, some 13 percent of the New York’s 361-sailor crew are from her namesake state, a higher number than is usual. Many Navy personnel requested assignment to the New York, which will carry some 250 Marines initially, although at 684 feet long, she can carry as many as 800 Marines and her flight deck can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. Two other San Antonio-class amphibious dock vessels are named in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks: the USS Arlington honors the attack on the Pentagon and the USS Somerset was named after the county in Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after passengers and crew wrested control of it from the hijackers before it could be flown into another target in Washington, D.C. All three vessels are memorials to the courage and faith of the victims and heroes of September 11.

The New York is the latest of a number of Navy ships to carry the name of the Empire State. Her predecessors included a Spanish- American War-era cruiser, a battleship that served in World Wars I and II and a nuclear submarine that was retired from the fleet in 1997. The present New York was scheduled to be built before the terrorist attacks, but about a year later, it was announced that she would bear the name “New York” to honor the city and state and those who died on September 11.

At the time that the aircraft flew into the Twin Towers we at the Gazette were doing what we are today—putting out a newspaper for the friends and neighbors who are our readers. Then and now, we express the same sentiment, the same determination: “We will prevail.” We believe that in the eight years since the terrorist attacks we as a city and a nation have more than demonstrated our will to survive and thrive in the midst of adversity and danger. We have made some changes in our lives and our habits since that day, but we continue to go on with our lives openly and without fear. The New York is a symbol of our courage and perseverance.

We welcome the USS New York into the Navy’s family of ships and into our hearts. The seven tons of steel from Ground Zero will make her bow stronger, her engines faster and the members of her crew and the Marines she will carry to distant battlefields even more courageous than we already know them to be. May she carry on her duties even as we, those who live in the city for which she is named, carry on with ours. She will carry our spirit with her as we hold her in our hearts and minds, wherever she may sail. May she always find a fair wind and a following breeze and may she return to us safely so we can welcome her once again.