Ahoy! 18th Century Ship Found At World Trade Center Site

[Updated with more photos and a video below] The World Trade Center site has been synonymous with excavation for the past eight+ years, but it was only recently that a ship from the late 1700s was found. Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman told us that it was found during work for the Vehicle Security Center. And City Room reports:

By Wednesday, the outlines made it plain: a 30-foot length of a wood-hulled vessel had been discovered about 20 to 30 feet below street level on the World Trade Center site, the first such large-scale archaeological find along the Manhattan waterfront since 1982, when an 18th-century cargo ship came to light at 175 Water Street.

The area under excavation, between Liberty and Cedar Streets, had not been dug out for the original trade center. The vessel, presumably dating from the mid- to late 1700s, was evidently undisturbed more than 200 years.

The ship had been preserved by the ground water and sediment, so now, with it exposed to the air, it's starting to deteriorate. Archaeologists have flocked to the site to examine the hull. Molly McDonald, of AKRF, told the AP, "We noticed curved timbers that a back hoe brought up. We quickly found the rib of a vessel and continued to clear it away and expose the hull over the last two days.... We're going to send timber samples to a laboratory to do dendrochronology that will help us to get a sense of when the boat was constructed."

As for why the boat was buried: Another AKRF archaeologist, A. Michael Pappalardo, and NY State Historic Preservation chief regional archaeologist Doug Mackey told City Room that the "sawed-off beams seemed to indicate that the hull had deliberately been truncated, most likely to be used as landfill material." City Room also has a slideshow of the unearthed ship.

Update: Some more photographs, plus WCBS 2 asked some people what they thought and folks were EXCITED: "It's amazing. I don't know what else could be under there! There must be other stuff!"

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By Jen Chung in News on July 15, 2010 3:08 PM

Comments [rss]

RabbiLaFunque

How dare those 18th century people leave their boats on this hallowed ground!!

valeriob

Terrorism!

LeLY

Man, I knew I shouldn't have left it there...I hope they didn't find my map.

stipulation

This boat appears to be of low quality. I doubt that it's worth salvaging at this point. Based on some amateur boat construction I've been involved with, there is an extremely low probability that this will ever return to being a seafaring vessel. If I were them I would throw it out and continue working.

dr zippy

As the article says the wood is disintegrating on exposure to air. Nobody is talking about salvaging the ship, let alone trying to get it seaworthy.

stipulation

dr zippy,

This is exactly what I was thinking. Given the poor quality of the wood, I think that even if it were repaired (obviously you can see from the photographs the number of holes that would need to be fixed) the repaired vessel would be precarious to say the least.

Again, based only on my amateur boat construction experience, there were some serious design errors made by the original construction team. Not to be a monday morning quarterback, but I have to think I would have considered some sort of fiberglass hull, or at the very least, used some pressure treated wood. It all depends on who commissioned the boat in the first place, and what sort of specifications they put out to the construction team.

As for whether they are trying to salvage the ship, I have to disagree with you. The photo clearly shows a women measuring a length of wood, ostensibly to determine what sort of supports would be needed to reinforce such low quality wood. Not to be inflammatory, but if they were going to just throw it out, what would be the point of measuring!?

Take this perspective with a grain of salt, as I am no expert, and would be the first to tell you that my experience building boats is extremely limited and very much at the amateur level.

But that said, this is NYC after all, so I'm guessing this reconstruction crew knows more than I do about this sort of low quality wood and how to reinforce it. Here's to hoping they get it up and running!

ItchyGoiter

200 years of parking tickets is not going to be pretty...

eitan

At one time that entire location of the WTC was part of the Hudson, only later filled in with earth. This ship was built, used for trade, sailed only god knows where. An entire bustling colonial community existed until one day, for reasons unknown it sank, forgotten. Life went on.

Then the area was filled in, houses were built, lives were lived, houses torn down and others went up. Years went by. Then the Twin Towers went up, then came down, and now, how many years later, this relic sees the light of day again. Absolutely incredible.

DanielJ

I want to do some mushrooms with you.

Tati Hana

These two comments made my day! I want to sit by the fire with you guys and listen to ancient tales of NYC.

eitan

I wont say no.

I have a particular affection for this city, as so many do. When I was a child in the 80's my mom would take me sometimes to work with her on 42nd st (no jokes please, it was a nail salon, she worked very hard) and the images of the heart of manhattan, the lights, the crowds, especially in those times forever created a brilliant, romantic impression in my mind.

I grew up to devour books on NYC history (among other things) and it only serves to deepen my love for this incredible, unique place. Ive been everywhere there is to be here, and Ive only scratched the surface. You need more than one lifetime to completely experience this place.

Throughout human history there have been just a small handful of incredible cities at incredible times; Rome during the empire, London in the middle ages, Milan during the Rennaissance, Paris at the turn of the 19th century. People hundreds of years from now, perhaps even thousands, will look back at NYC during our and our parent's lifetimes the same way.

Tati Hana

This place is absolutely fascinating.

eitan

lol, those that did have thanked me.

schizofriendly

Reminder: We are all just visitors here.

Angelheaded Hipster

fucking AWESOME

HBHB

More delay! More proof they never plan on rebuilding. Why are they even digging that deep?

JMH

So, are you an expert on skyscraper construction here to tell us that they don't need to dig that deep to lay a foundation?

(The foundation of the Empire State Building is 55 feet deep, doesn't seem like they're that deep here.)

HBHB

JMH, why wasn't the ship found when they first built WTC. You're acting like nothing had been built there before.

EastRiver

If I'm reading the plans correctly (and I like to think that I am) there is not going to be a skyscraper where they found the ship. And there wasn't anything built there before, at least not recently. It looks like they are digging where Liberty Street would be and the old St. Nicholas church and its parking lot were (or at least part of it). The Times article clearly says that the site was not excavated when the first WTC was built. In other words, this current dig is outside the old "bathtub". What they are building there is part of the underground "vehicle security center". From the "World Trade Center Progress" pages on the Port Authority website it looks like the area will be covered with a park when they are done. As to why are the going all the way down to bedrock, it sounds like they are dealing with the same issues are the old WTC: high water table. They need to construct slurry walls to hold back the water and they need to be supported on something more solid than landfill. Here's an article from the Times from 2009 when they started.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/work-begins-on-world-trade-center-checkpoint/

Jen Chung

With the former WTC, there were only two buildings. The current plans call for four skyscrapers, a transportation center, the vehicle security center, etc. There's a lot of infrastructure that's needed.