★★★★★ 5.0
Discover
Intrepid Museum
Twenty-eight seconds. That's all the time between each aircraft launch when USS Intrepid set what's believed to be the fastest carrier launching record in 1966, catapulting fifteen fully-loaded warplanes into the sky in just seven minutes during the Vietnam War. Standing here on Pier 86 in Hell's Kitchen, you're looking at one of only four surviving Essex-class aircraft carriers from World War II, and honestly, the most battle-scarred of them all. This massive steel giant survived five separate kamikaze attacks and a torpedo strike, earning nicknames like "The Dry I" and "Decrepit" from her own crew - though they said it with love. What's wild is that after 9/11, this museum ship went back into active duty as the FBI's temporary headquarters while they investigated the attacks. You can actually see where Flight 1549 - the "Miracle on the Hudson" - splashed down just upriver from here in 2009. As you step aboard, you'll notice they converted one of the original aircraft elevators into a theater, but here's what most visitors miss - only a quarter of this massive ship is actually open to the public. The rest remains exactly as sailors left it in 1974. And that gleaming white Space Shuttle Enterprise in the pavilion? It's the prototype that never flew in space but paved the way for every shuttle mission that followed.
Did You Know?
- The Intrepid Museum is centered around the USS Intrepid, an Essex-class aircraft carrier that survived a torpedo hit, multiple kamikaze attacks, and even a collision with the Panama Canal during World War II—earning it the nickname 'the Ghost Ship' from Japanese forces, who believed it had been sunk multiple times but it kept returning to battle.
- Visitors can explore the only nuclear-weapons-carrying submarine open to the public—the USS Growler—as well as the supersonic Concorde jet and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, making the museum a rare place where guests can experience major technological milestones in aviation, space, and naval history all in one location.
- A little-known architectural detail: less than a quarter of the USS Intrepid’s interior is accessible to the public, and the ship’s original airplane elevators, which once moved aircraft between decks, have been repurposed—one now serves as a unique theater space within the museum.