Friendship Of Salem Visits New York

Friendship of Salem is a 116-foot exact replica of a 1797 merchant vessel is in New York this weekend at the North Cove Marina in Lower Manhattan. The vessel is usually home-ported at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site in Massachusetts. The public is invited aboard to tour the ship for free Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. The three-masted square-rigger is on a goodwill tour that’s also giving 33 National Park Service interns hands-on experience. All shipboard commands are given in late-eighteenth-century language, and volunteers do everything from sanding to painting to climbing the rigging high above the deck. 

The Great White Fleet

photo display

ship model

The U.S. Navy commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Great White Fleet in New York Oct. 7-17 at Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall with the opening of an exhibit that runs through the Columbus celebration. 

The exhibit includes eight-foot models of battleships, artifacts, memorabilia from Sailors aboard the ships and photo displays that tell the story of an American naval mission of ships of the Great White Fleet to Italy in 1908 following a devastating earthquake.


In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt sent 16 battleships to circumnavigate the globe on a goodwill mission. When a devastating earthquake followed by a tidal wave hit Sicily and southern Italy in late 1908, the fleet’s mission changed dramatically. Ships from America’s Great White Fleet rushed to the Mediterranean to provide essential humanitarian aid and services to Italy, where an estimated 200,000 people had perished.