Video by: Danielle Pierre
Photos by: Keziah Green
Just four days before Veterans Day, the USS New York, a ship made in part out of steel from the World Trade Center wreckage, was commissioned at Pier 88 on the Westside of Manhattan. The ceremony included speeches by Governor David Paterson and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Inside the gates at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, Naval seamen were lined up along the edges of the USS New York. A few feet away on land, an honor guard of Marines and the Navy were stood in front of a line of several flags that were half-mast. President Obama ordered the flags in that position after the tragic shooting at Fort Hood, Texas early this week.
An assembly of boy scouts, sailors, policemen, Marines and many more took part in the day’s event, which honored the only service ship that bears the name of a state. The ship was named to honor 9/11 victims.
“The event was beautiful, and it brought tears to my eyes,” said Marie Houanche, a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S Army.
The ship, which arrived in New York on Monday, November 2nd, will be used to transport and land Marines, their equipment and supplies. “It was the ultimate symbol of resilience,” Governor Paterson says about the USS New York.
He mentions that to take the steel from the World Trade Center and then build a ship out of it is amazing. “There were many many people who perished at 9/11 who were never recovered,” he continues. “So it not only bares their spirit, it bares their DNA.”
After the ship was commissioned, a new 9/11 memorial was unveiled. The memorial consisted of two 12-foot-tall, 3,000-pound pieces of steel recovered from the fallen World Trade Center, closely resembling how the Towers once stood.
One Marine Corp veteran, Roland St. Paul, 71, also came to the event. He said that it is a great experience. Although he did not have a ticket to be part of the commissioning ceremony, he did have his Marine Corp hat that read “I Served With Pride.”
“Excellent idea,” St. Paul says about the ship being made out of the metal of the World Trade Center building. “I know the sacrifices that [the soldier's] are making. I respect that.”
The USS New York will be in dock for visitors until Wednesday, November 11th 2009.
