Saturday, February 6, 2010

Titanic Exhibit

Pat and I really enjoyed walking through the exhibit.  There weren't too many people there so we took our time and read everything.  Upon entering they hand you a boarding ticket with a passenger name and boarding class and also a little information about the person.  We first learned about the building of the ship, then passengers and artifacts, and then the iceberg and sinking.  Of course there were differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class tickets and it was neat to see their different place settings and a sample menu.  The ship carried on it provisions to make over 60,000 meals.  The Titanic had more luxuries than any other ship, including a swimming pool and turkish bath!  I wish I could have taken some pictures but of course those artifacts are almost 100 years old so there was no photography.  There was one china cabinet that fell on the bottom of the sea that was filled with china, eventually the wood deteriorated and there were all these nice neat rows of china in the sand.  Pretty neat!
(my boarding pass)
It was sad to read some of the personal stories.  Everyone had their different reasons for being there.  Many of the passengers would have never been on the ship had it not been for the coal strike at the time.  It took so much coal to power the boat (can't quite remember, maybe it was a pound of coal for 1 foot of movement, or maybe it was 60? hmmm).     
Once the survivors finally reached their destination of New York, many people came together to help them.  Hotels offered free places to stay, free rides, scholarships and a great amount of money was donated.  It made me think of Haiti and how many people are ready to help when crisis hits.


For all you New York people, the exhibit closes February 28th.  I definitely think it's worth checking out!  PS: We got our photo taken on a reproduction of the grand staircase, but I didn't think it was worth $20.

1 comment:

  1. That looks like a great exhibit. How nice to be able to take your time going through that!

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