The USS New York

Congratulations are in order to the captain and crew of the United States Ship New York, which will be formally dedicated according to Navy tradition tomorrow when a bottle of champagne is broken across her bow at the New Orleans boatyard where it was built. A Navy press release reports the warship, an amphibious transport dock ship that can carry a landing force of 800 Marines, is named New York "in honor of the state, the city and the victims of Sept. 11, 2001." The release says 7.5 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center wreckage was melted and formed into the bow stem of the ship, symbolizing "the spirit and resiliency of the people of New York." The ship's first captain is himself a New Yorker, Commander F. Curtis Jones, of Binghamton. This is no small vessel — 684 feet long, it has a crew of 360 sailors and three Marines.

The navy release reports that four previous ships have been named New York. The first was a gondola that served in 1776; the second, a frigate that served between 1800 and 1814; the third, an armored cruiser that served between 1893 and 1938; and the fourth, a battleship that served between 1914 and 1946. When the New York takes to the open seas, it will resume a tradition of service that is as old as our country and join an Atlantic Fleet that serves to protect us all from another attack of the sort that produced the steel wreckage of September 11, 2001. If there is a finer use of the steel we can't think of it.