Leila Brown, Grace Forte, Dina Exil and Edwina Bien-Aime contributed to this story
On November 8th, 2008, the historical Intrepid warship reopened as an educational and hands-on museum. The Intrepid was closed in July 2006 to undergo restoration and repairs and was sent to its permanent home at Pier 86 in New York City. From the outside, the Intrepid doesn’t look like your everyday museum. Many wouldn’t guess from the dull gray exterior what kind of educational value awaits them on the inside. One key part of the museum is the Explorium area. The Explorium area contains four color coated exhibit highlighting the four areas that the Intrepid contributed to. Green was for Life on Earth, yellow for air, blue for Sea and orange for Space. Each exhibit has activities that are fun for young and old pertaining to the area, in which they are located. For example, in the Space exhibit, visitors can get inside a replica spacecraft that use to be recovered from the ocean by the Intrepid after landing.
The Flight Deck of the ship contained many war aircrafts, such as the F-11 Tiger, The UH-1A Huey and the A-12 Blackbird. The Hangar Deck contains the Explorium exhibit, a G-4 simulator and the Allison & Howard Lutnick Theater along with many other old aircrafts and exhibits. Some facts about the historical ship that each propeller powering the ship weighs 30,000 lbs and two former avenger pilots or the Intrepid include, the late Paul Newman and President George H. W. Bush.
Many people, young and old came out to celebrate in the reopening of the Intrepid, including several war veterans from many American wars, from World War II to Vietnam. “People should share what this boat is all about,” says Rafeal Suarez, a Korean war veteran who served four years on the sister ship of the Intrepid on the coast of Korea. Some maybe wondering what is so special about the Intrepid: the Intrepid was built in 1943. It was decided that it would be used for a museum to preserve the memories and a piece of American history. It was used in WW II to Vietnam and survived several attacks. After Vietnam, the Intrepid is also used as an astronaut recovery vessel for NASA before retireing in 1974. From what was seen, this historical museum is a great way to spend an afternoon in New York City.
