An exhibit of recovered items from the Titanic that drew 850,000 visitors to the Museum of Science and Industry two years ago will return to the museum July 1 with some new additions, officials said Wednesday.
More Top Picks Best Winter Boots For The Cold
“`Back by popular demand,’ that really does sum it up,” museum President David Mosena said of the exhibit, which proved to be the biggest blockbuster in the museum’s history and consistently sold out over its seven-month run.
Public interest in the Titanic has seemed almost insatiable since the luxury liner, built to be unsinkable, sank in the early-morning of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Because there were not enough lifeboats, 1,523 passengers and crew members went down with the ship.
Billed as “Titanic: The New Exhibition,” the 25,000-square-foot exhibit will have some of the most popular features from the earlier showing, as well as several new components never put on display before. It remains the largest assemblage of salvaged Titanic artifacts ever displayed, Mosena said.
Some of the new items were plucked from the Titanic wreckage when divers visited the ship at the bottom of the North Atlantic in a deep-sea submersible two years ago, the most recent salvage expedition.
The artifacts include the ship’s wheel and other items from the Titanic’s bridge, which will be shown in a full-sized model of the bridge built for the new show.
Among the more personal items is a boarding pass for Marion Meanwell, a second-class cabin passenger who did not survive the sinking. The pass had been issued for the passenger steamer Majestic, but because of difficulties due to striking coal workers Meanwell was reassigned to the Titanic. The word “Majestic” is scratched out on her pass.
The new exhibit also will feature a full-scale model of the ship’s promenade, the first-class passengers’ Veranda Cafe dining room, and new first- and second-class cabins.
The full-scale model of the Titanic’s elegant grand staircase, a focal point of the earlier exhibit, will return. Also returning is the biggest piece of the sunken ship to be recovered, a 15-ton, 20-foot-by-16-foot jagged section of the hull with portholes still intact.
Mosena said that although the exhibit will be laid out somewhat differently than the one two years ago, the main focus will continue to be the hundreds of personal items belonging to passengers and crew. Those include eyeglasses, clothing, suitcases, toiletries, still-legible letters, neatly folded linen socks and other objects perfectly preserved from sitting on the dark, almost oxygenless sandy ocean bottom for 90 years.
“It never really occurred to us to revisit an exhibit we had already shown,” Mosena said, “but all last year we had a steady drumbeat of people writing us and calling us, wondering if we would consider bringing back the Titanic. They either missed it when it was here, or said they wanted to see it again.”
The exhibit, to run through Oct. 31, is the creation of Clear Channel Entertainment and RMS Titanic Inc., which runs the salvage operations. The museum will charge an additional fee to see the exhibit, $10 for adults and $8 for children younger than 12. Tickets go on sale April 15 at the museum.