Inside the Warship Built from 9/11 Wreckage

Most Navy ships carry the name of a state or city as a matter of tradition. The USS New York carries something more literal in its hull.

The amphibious transport dock ship’s bow stem, the structural spine that cuts through the water at the leading edge of the vessel, contains 7.5 tons of steel recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, melted down and recast to build the ship, according to its shipbuilder, Northrop Grumman.

A Governor’s Request

The ship’s origin traces to a letter New York Gov. George Pataki sent to then-Secretary of the Navy Gordon England after the attacks, requesting that a surface ship, not a submarine, be named for the state in honor of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, according to an account published by War History Online.

State names are traditionally reserved for submarines under Navy naming convention, making Pataki’s request for a surface combatant an unusual one. The Navy granted it, and the New York became the fifth ship in the San Antonio class of amphibious transport docks — vessels used to carry Marines, their equipment, and landing craft into combat zones.

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From Ground Zero to a Foundry in Louisiana

Getting the steel from the rubble into the ship’s hull took years of coordination. A representative of the Port Authority, alongside former crew members of the retired aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, presented a 200-pound girder from the World Trade Center to the Navy, according to a historical account published by GlobalSecurity.org,

Naval Sea Systems Command engineers then had to study the salvaged steel’s chemistry to determine how much of it could be reused structurally, a process GlobalSecurity.org’s account notes was more complicated than simply melting scrap metal, since engineers initially believed only a small amount of the material would prove usable.

A total of 24 tons of World Trade Center steel eventually arrived at Amite Foundry and Machine in Amite, Louisiana, where it was melted down Sept. 9, 2003, and cast into molds to form the ship’s bow stem, according to the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, whose members worked on the ship’s construction at Northrop Grumman’s Avondale shipyard. The 7.5-ton stem was installed into the ship’s hull in 2005, with the remaining 311-ton bow section lifted into place the following year, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

A Connection That Runs Deeper Than the Name

The New York isn’t the first ship to carry that name, tied to a moment of tragedy. The battleship USS New York, designated BB-34, had its keel laid Sept. 11, 1911, exactly 90 years before the attacks that the new ship now memorializes, according to an account published by the law firm Galiher DeRobertis & Waxman examining the ship’s history.

That same battleship’s crew and the civilian first responders who worked at Ground Zero share an unrelated but similarly grim connection: Both were exposed to asbestos dust, the battleship’s crew from insulation used in the ship’s construction and the responders from insulation used in the original World Trade Center towers, according to the same account.

The current New York is also one of three deliberately named tribute vessels within the San Antonio class specifically honoring the sites attacked on Sept. 11. USS Arlington, LPD-24, honors the location of the Pentagon attack in Virginia, according to the Boilermakers’ account of the New York’s construction.

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Still on Active Duty

USS New York was commissioned in November 2009 at a ceremony on the pier of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, drawing families of Sept. 11 victims, first responders and crew members of the earlier battleship that shared the ship’s name, according to the Galiher DeRobertis and Waxman account.

The ship has returned to New York Harbor for commemorative visits in the years since, including a 2011 visit that carried 170 members of the 9/11 Families Association from Norfolk to New York to participate in anniversary observances.

The ship remains in active Navy service today, carrying up to 800 Marines along with their equipment, landing craft and aircraft on amphibious operations around the world, a working warship that happens to carry, in its most structurally essential component, physical material from one of the deadliest attacks in American history.