Description
The Intrepid Museum, formerly the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, is a military, aerospace and history museum built around a World War II aircraft carrier, the USS Intrepid. It is moored at Pier 86 on the Hudson River, at 46th Street in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, and it is a favorite with anyone who likes ships, planes and rockets.
The main attraction is the flight deck, which carries dozens of aircraft, many of them used by the United States Armed Forces. Below, the hangar and gallery decks hold exhibit halls, a theater and flight simulators.
Alongside the carrier are two more stars. The submarine Growler, a Grayback-class boat that carried nuclear Regulus missiles, can be visited inside. The Concorde is one of only two in the United States on display; it could fly London to New York in under three hours.
In its own Space Shuttle Pavilion stands the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which never went to space: it was built for test flights in the atmosphere. Another curiosity is the Lockheed A-12, a supersonic reconnaissance plane.
In February 1944, in the middle of the Pacific, a Japanese torpedo jammed the rudder of the Intrepid. The crew's answer: a sail rigged from scrap canvas and hatch covers, which helped bring the ship back to Pearl Harbor.
It was not her only bad day. Torpedoed once and hit in four kamikaze attacks, she spent so long in dry dock that sailors nicknamed her "the Dry I". A plaque on the flight deck marks where a 1944 kamikaze killed 22 men.
After the war she served off Vietnam and was a recovery ship for space missions, including the Mercury and Gemini flights. Decommissioned, she was due to be scrapped, until developer Zachary Fisher fought to save her. The museum opened at Pier 86 in 1982.
The main attraction is the flight deck, which carries dozens of aircraft, many of them used by the United States Armed Forces. Below, the hangar and gallery decks hold exhibit halls, a theater and flight simulators.
Alongside the carrier are two more stars. The submarine Growler, a Grayback-class boat that carried nuclear Regulus missiles, can be visited inside. The Concorde is one of only two in the United States on display; it could fly London to New York in under three hours.
In its own Space Shuttle Pavilion stands the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which never went to space: it was built for test flights in the atmosphere. Another curiosity is the Lockheed A-12, a supersonic reconnaissance plane.
In February 1944, in the middle of the Pacific, a Japanese torpedo jammed the rudder of the Intrepid. The crew's answer: a sail rigged from scrap canvas and hatch covers, which helped bring the ship back to Pearl Harbor.
It was not her only bad day. Torpedoed once and hit in four kamikaze attacks, she spent so long in dry dock that sailors nicknamed her "the Dry I". A plaque on the flight deck marks where a 1944 kamikaze killed 22 men.
After the war she served off Vietnam and was a recovery ship for space missions, including the Mercury and Gemini flights. Decommissioned, she was due to be scrapped, until developer Zachary Fisher fought to save her. The museum opened at Pier 86 in 1982.