Is it weird to visit your past life in a museum? kidding. (Sorta…) This morning I went to the Titanic Discovery exhibit at the new Times Square exhibition center. As many of you know, for most of my life I’ve been a little obsessed with the ill fated ship (though the movie ruined it a bit for me), so this was an experience I have been looking forward to for a while (though around for a few years, this exhibit has never passed through NY). It’s quite a large exhibition, 5 or 6 galleries including full room replications and a corresponding audio guide (definitely forgo-it was pointless, poorly planned, repetitive and not worth the $5 charge). I do feel however, that the layout purposely makes the artifact collection appear much larger than it actually is and I’d be curious to find out how much of the artifact collection is replication vs, restoration. Upon entering the exhibit, you are given a “boarding pass” with details about an individual passenger who was on the ship. Cute idea and attempt to humanize the artifacts/experience. My person was Miss Henriette Yrois from Paris. A young model, 24,  Henriette was traveling second class with William Harbeck, a filmaker employed by the White Star Line to film the Titanic’s maiden voyage. She was his mistress. At the end of the exhibit I looked them up on the memorial wall and found that both had perished at sea. Overall I enjoyed it, though the overt “Disney-fication”of several elements including a staged photo-opportunity on a replica of the Grand Staircase in the middle of the exhibit (no, I did not take a photo on the staircase), kept the mood a bit too light for such a historical, somber tragedy -  1,517 people lost their lives. As for the artifacts, I was a tad (just a tiny tiny tad) disappointed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this may just be the result of my personal fatigue/exposure to the subject (I’ve seen most of these items online, in books etc..) or the manner in which the artifacts were displayed - they seemed disconnected, as if they lost their story (if that can happen-hard to explain) once separated from the ship. On a final note - as I mentioned in my tweet this morning - the stuffed polar bear wearing a Titanic T-shirt and sitting on an iceberg for sale at the gift shop (at the exit of course) is in poor taste. I so should have bought one. All in all, I am glad I went and I’ll probably head back again if anyone is interested… Hopefully the group of rude (and obviously uninterested) high school kids from the mid-west (no proof but I’m being snarky) will not be there next time. I think I saw one of them buy the polar bear.

Is it weird to visit your past life in a museum? kidding. (Sorta…)

This morning I went to the Titanic Discovery exhibit at the new Times Square exhibition center. As many of you know, for most of my life I’ve been a little obsessed with the ill fated ship (though the movie ruined it a bit for me), so this was an experience I have been looking forward to for a while (though around for a few years, this exhibit has never passed through NY). It’s quite a large exhibition, 5 or 6 galleries including full room replications and a corresponding audio guide (definitely forgo-it was pointless, poorly planned, repetitive and not worth the $5 charge). I do feel however, that the layout purposely makes the artifact collection appear much larger than it actually is and I’d be curious to find out how much of the artifact collection is replication vs, restoration. Upon entering the exhibit, you are given a “boarding pass” with details about an individual passenger who was on the ship. Cute idea and attempt to humanize the artifacts/experience. My person was Miss Henriette Yrois from Paris. A young model, 24,  Henriette was traveling second class with William Harbeck, a filmaker employed by the White Star Line to film the Titanic’s maiden voyage. She was his mistress. At the end of the exhibit I looked them up on the memorial wall and found that both had perished at sea.

Overall I enjoyed it, though the overt “Disney-fication”of several elements including a staged photo-opportunity on a replica of the Grand Staircase in the middle of the exhibit (no, I did not take a photo on the staircase), kept the mood a bit too light for such a historical, somber tragedy -  1,517 people lost their lives. As for the artifacts, I was a tad (just a tiny tiny tad) disappointed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this may just be the result of my personal fatigue/exposure to the subject (I’ve seen most of these items online, in books etc..) or the manner in which the artifacts were displayed - they seemed disconnected, as if they lost their story (if that can happen-hard to explain) once separated from the ship.

On a final note - as I mentioned in my tweet this morning - the stuffed polar bear wearing a Titanic T-shirt and sitting on an iceberg for sale at the gift shop (at the exit of course) is in poor taste. I so should have bought one.

All in all, I am glad I went and I’ll probably head back again if anyone is interested…

Hopefully the group of rude (and obviously uninterested) high school kids from the mid-west (no proof but I’m being snarky) will not be there next time. I think I saw one of them buy the polar bear.