NORFOLK, Va. – The Navy announced Monday that the USS New York, built with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center in her bow, will make its first visit to its homeport, Naval Station Norfolk, on Thursday.

The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship left the Northrop Grumman shipyard in Avondale, Lousiana, on October 13th, bound for New York City, where it will be commissioned on November 7th.

The USS New York (LPD-21), named to commemorate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is 684 feet long and can carry up to 800 Marines. It has a flight deck that can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

The New York revives a name held by at least four other Navy ships, including a Spanish-American War-era cruiser, a battleship that served in World Wars I and II and a nuclear submarine retired from the fleet in 1997.

LPD-21 is the fifth San Antonio-class ship built. The first four in the series – the USS San Antonio, USS New Orleans, USS Mesa Verde and USS Green Bay – are in service. Four other ships in the class are under construction: Somerset and Anchorage at the Avondale yard, and Arlington and San Diego at Northrop Grumman’s yard in Pascagoula, Miss.

Arlington and Somerset also carry names connected to the Sept. 11 attacks: Arlington for the attack on the Pentagon and Somerset for the Pennsylvania county in which United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after being hijacked.

Source, AP