Strategic Air & Space Museum

Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum

The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum is a museum in New York City located at North River (New York-New Jersey) Pier 86 on the West Side of Manhattan. The museum showcases the World War II aircraft carrier , the submarine , and a Lockheed A-12 supersonic reconnaissance plane (often mistaken for the later SR-71 Blackbird).

It is located in a tourist area, next to the New York Passenger Ship Terminal, the Circle Line pier, and near the New York consulate of the People's Republic of China and a heliport.

The museum serves as a hub for the annual Fleet Week events. Visiting warships dock at the cruise ship terminals to the north, and events are held on the museum grounds and the deck of the Intrepid.

The museum is currently closed for renovations but is projected to reopen in 2008.

History

The museum opened in 1982 after Zachary Fisher succeeded in saving the Intrepid from being broken up in 1974, and after Fisher docked the ship at Pier 86. The USS Intrepid (CV-11) became a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

In September 2001, the Intrepid served as temporary field headquarters for the FBI as it began its investigation of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.

2006-2008 renovation

On October 1 2006, the Intrepid closed for repairs and renovations to herself and her pier. Intrepid was moved down the Hudson by tugboat to The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, New Jersey (previously the Military Ocean Terminal) to undergo restoration.

The scheduled move was delayed on November 6, 2006 when the ship's propellers stuck in the thick Hudson River mud, preventing the assembled tugboats from moving the ship out of her berth. A second successful attempt was made on December 5, 2006 after extensive dredging operations. The aircraft carrier was later floated to Staten Island where her museum facilities were upgraded and expanded before returning to her renovated pier in Manhattan.

The carrier was towed back into place on the Hudson River on October 2, 2008 and is scheduled to reopen to the public on November 8. Additional aircraft would be displayed on the flight and hanger decks and the British Concorde was moved from a barge into an exhibit space on the pier.

Selected exhibits

(1989), a diesel electric submarine which carried out nuclear deterrent patrols armed with Regulus missiles.
(1989), a Forrest Sherman class destroyer replaced by a supersonic Concorde airliner in 2004.
British Airways Concorde G-BOAD (2004), on display on a barge at the museum.
(WAT/WMEC-166), a former Navy tug-turned-cutter which was released by the Intrepid museum and is now a museum ship in Baltimore.
The "Intrepid" houses a large collection of aircraft including a British Royal Navy "Supermarine Scimitar", Navy F-14 Tomcat,an Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon, a Marine Corps AV-8 Harrier, a Lockheed A-12 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft (predecessor of the SR-71), a French Dassault Étendard IV, and a Polish MiG-21. The helicopter collection includes two Vietnam-era UH-1 Hueys, and two AH-1 Cobra gunships - a Marine Corps AH-1J Sea Cobra, and a fully restored Army AH-1 Cobra .
Armoured fighting vehicles captured from Iraq during the Gulf War