18th Century Ship found under New York City
On Tuesday morning, workers excavating the site of the underground vehicle security center for the future World Trade Center hit a row of sturdy, upright wood timbers, regularly spaced, sticking out of a briny gray muck flecked with oyster shells.
…“They were so perfectly contoured that they were clearly part of a ship,” said A. Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist with the firm AKRF, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to document historical material uncovered during construction.
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.
They believe it’s part of a ship from the mid to late 1700s. If I’m figuring this right, it was found just south of the right side of this map:
As for why the ship is there, it’s not nearly as exciting or romantic as one might hope:
…the sawed-off beams seemed to indicate that the hull had deliberately been truncated, most likely to be used as landfill material.
We’re digging up 18th century America’s garbage, and we’re fascinated.
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