A liner did sink in in New York Harbour. It was the french liner Normandie. She was set alight by a fire started when sparks from a welder set alight some life jackets nearby (she was being turned into a troopship,like the Queen Mary). They coudn't use the sprinkler system aboard as it had been disconnected, and the NY fire department coudn't hook their hoses into the ship's water main as they were french.
Harbour fire boats poured water onto her from the sea, while fire trucks poured water from the other side from land. This caused the ship to become top heavy and unblanced. She sank on her side later that day. The ship then became the most expensive salvage operation mounted at the time, taking over a year. After refloating her, she was too heavly damaged, and so was scraped.
