On February 2, 2010, the India House Foundation will open Ships, Explorers and the World Trade Center, a new exhibition featuring discoveries, artifacts, and multimedia that illustrate the maritime history of downtown New York.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• The charred remains of a ship's bow excavated in 1916, long thought to be the ship's keel of Dutch explorer Adriaen Block's ship Tijger, which burned off Manhattan in 1613, and a bronze cannon marked "VOC," property of the Dutch East India Company
• An ancient, 11-foot iron anchor hoisted from the construction site of the World Trade Center in 1967, where it had been buried for more than 300 years (Courtesy National Maritime Historical Society)
• Documentary film footage from 1916 of the discovery of the Ship Tijger keel and a section of Manhattan Company Water Pipe (1800) found during excavation for the IRT subway tunnel at the future World Trade Center site (Courtesy Brooklyn College Archives)
• A model and film of the USS NEW YORK, the Navy's newly commissioned (7 November 2009) Landing Platform, Dock Warship, made with 7.5 tons of World Trade Center Steel forged into its bow (Courtesy USS NEW YORK Commissioning Committee)
• At the entrance to The India House: a steel artifact recovered from the World Trade Center. This will be a permanent reminder of the World Trade Center, the innocent victims, and the bravery of those who responded on September 11, 2001

"The India House is the perfect setting for this historic exhibition," commented Margaret Stocker, IHF Trustee and curator of the exhibition. "The land at One Hanover Square was owned in 1673 by Peter Stuyvesant's nephew and New Amsterdam's secretary, Nicholas Bayard, and the current building dates to after the Great Fire of 1835."

The India House Foundation was established in 1999 to document and preserve maritime history and help revitalize Lower Manhattan, New York City.

Ships, Explorers and the World Trade Center, India House, One Hanover Square, New York City
February 2-28, 2010
www.indiahousefoundation.org.

An ancient, 11-foot iron anchor hoisted from the construction site of the World Trade Center in 1967, where it had been buried for more than 300 years (Courtesy National Maritime Historical Society).

Mrs. Stocker:

"Archaeologists do not agree on how old this anchor is or where it was made. Did it once secure a Dutch explorer or trader’s ship at the anchorage that early maps show was located off the beach on the Hudson River where the World Trade Center would be built centuries later? Was it made in a Spanish foundry, used on a Conquistador’s vessel, and plundered by a Dutch or British privateer? Was it used on a British vessel before the American Revolution?

This 11-foot anchor was discovered in 1967 when construction workers dug down through landfill and river sand to bedrock in order to ‘anchor’ the World Trade Center Towers. They had secured the anchor in the sub basement of Tower Two when terrorists exploded a bomb nearby it – it survived. In 1999 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey gave preservationists Kent Barwick and Peter Stanford permission to remove the anchor for research and conservation. On September 11, 2001, the “World Trade Center Anchor” was stored in a shipping container in Peekskill, New York, under the guardianship of the National Maritime Historical Society."