Marksonland

While the exhibit didn't blow me away, it was a worthwhile experience that I would recommend doing. Looking at the artifacts really brought out the tragedy of the event for me. I stopped thinking of the passengers random names in a well known story (or characters in a movie), but as actual people who lived lives, had families, etc. Presumably that was one of the points of it, so it was pretty well done.

A couple of other random observations, in no particular order:

1. I had forgotten how many rich/ famous people were on that ship. John Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Straus, Lady Duff Gordon, etc. I started thinking that this would be the equivalent of any number of the people on today's richest persons list being lost in a single event.

2. Whenever I see the name Lady Duff Gordon, it takes me back to my law school contracts class when we studied the case Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon. I remember the professor noting at the time that the defendant was a passenger on the Titanic. But this was well before the movie and the recent resurgence in Titanic nostalgia, so it didn't really resonate that much.

3. I was astounded to learn that it took over 2 hours of descent in a manned subs to reach the wreckage on the sea floor. Perhaps there is some pressurization reasons for taking so long, but that's a lot longer than I would have guessed.

4. I wonder if there are commercial voyages to visit the wreckage. Given the interest in the Titanic, I would think that this would be happening. I mean, they're planning commercial trips to outer space - trips to the Titanic wreckage would have to be easier and less expensive to put together than that, no?

Anyway, if nothing else the exhibit let us check out a lot of interesting artifacts, learn a few things - and of course make a bunch of the obligatory "king of the world" jokes....so a good time overall.