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Gov­er­nors Island Hon­ors the Sep­tem­ber 11 Boatlift

Sep 11, 2026 8:54 am

“All avail­able boats…This is the Unit­ed States Coast Guard…Anyone want­i­ng to help with the evac­u­a­tion of Low­er Man­hat­tan report to Gov­er­nors Island.”

Each year on Sep­tem­ber 11, we hon­or the hun­dreds of mariners who answered Lt. Michael Day’s fate­ful call. In hon­or of the 25^th Anniver­sary, we are proud to share this sto­ry of how Gov­er­nors Island played a qui­et, yet impor­tant role in the recov­ery efforts on the day of the attacks — just one exam­ple of extra­or­di­nary acts of ser­vice and courage from across the City and beyond. On the morn­ing of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, 150 dif­fer­ent ves­sels – mer­chant ships, fire­boats, char­ter boats, tug­boats, pas­sen­ger fer­ries, and even the Stat­en Island Fer­ry – helped herd half a mil­lion peo­ple out of Low­er Man­hat­tan to safe­ty. This extra­or­di­nary feat, dubbed the ​“9/11 Boatlift,” is wide­ly con­sid­ered to be the largest civil­ian mar­itime evac­u­a­tion in his­to­ry, even larg­er than Dunkirk.

Addi­tion­al archival infor­ma­tion about this day can be found in Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine and at the Sea­port Muse­um, which holds a rare first­hand record of this extra­or­di­nary response: ​“9÷11 Water Evac­u­a­tion,” 90 min­utes of video footage doc­u­ment­ing the evac­u­a­tion of Low­er Man­hat­tan by water.

Pho­to cour­tesy of the New York City Police Department/​NYC Munic­i­pal Archive