This was a really interesting and thorough exhibit. It was amazing how many artifacts they're brought up. I also really enjoyed the recreations of the passenger rooms, dining areas and grand staircase.

report as inappropriate

• 10 Good To Know
• 0 I Like Your Writing
• 11 I Went And I Agree

love it....you really feel like you are there upon entering the exhibition. The music sets the tone and your mind begins to wonder how it would have been if you were one of the passengers...loved it so much, I can't wait to see the movie again!

report as inappropriate

• 4 Good To Know
• 1 I Like Your Writing
• 2 I Went And I Agree

I had a great time the exhibit was amazing.....Loved the recreation of parts of the ship.....I went alone and still had a great time

report as inappropriate

• 2 Good To Know
• 0 I Like Your Writing
• 2 I Went And I Agree

This is an attractive, well-designed and laid-out exhibition, over three floors (elevators available) of the new space renovated into the pressroom of the old New York Times building. There are a wide variety of interesting artifacts, carefully conserved and displayed, mostly in Plexiglas cases. There are also partial reconstructions of first and third-class staterooms, the grand staircase, and hallways and salons of the ship. A couple of adults could rush through the show in an hour, see it more fully in 1 1/2 hours, and spend another 1/2 to 1 hour in the exhibition shop and New York Times-shops you are discharged into after the exhibit. A fanatic could easily spend two happy hours here. Currently, the other half of the space has "Leonardo's Workshop", requiring a separate ticket. Photography is prohibited, but of course you can buy a photo they take of you.

Although I don't have children, I think they might add another half-hour to your visit, asking questions or looking into cases a little high-up for them. If they know the general story, they will be interested in the whole show. The "sinking" part of the show is not presented in a frightening way, although it is respectful of the loss of life. For example, it's personalized by spotlighting an evening purse or a pair of glasses-which has impact for adults, but will not disturb children who don't read the panel about the priest who comforted passengers without lifeboats.

I came to Goldstar because I wasn't willing to pay the list price of around $24 for the show. Another approach is to get a $2 coupon at Port Authority Bus Terminal or similar tourist brochure racks. The New York Times shop and the snack bar are right on the floor of the old pressroom, with some of the original flooring and columns preserved as a mini-exhibit. (No newspaper presses, though!) There's an audioguide available for an additional $5, which I refused to pay for.

I have a few snobby reservations based on years of real museum-going. The displays do not have as much information as I would like to see, particularly about replicas versus the real thing. The third-class cabin, for example, includes lovely logo-blankets that are clearly replicas, but the labels don't tell you that (... my observation, not a researched statement...) every single thing in the cabin is a modern replica. The very real lifeboat davit (an important object in an exhibit about a ship that sank...) is clearly heavily restored. But unlike a museum that might color differently the parts of a sculpture that are missing after a thousand years, it's all the same steel and bronze. There are decorative Royal Mail bags and baggage trunks all around the show, but no notation that they're modern window-dressing.

My other disappointment isn't all the show's fault: Many of the paper artifacts-postcards, stamps, money, Masonic certificates, and so on, are displayed in the sort of dim light you need to protect fragile materials. The light level is like that in a museum showing pastels or pencil drawings. Since these items are in plastic sleeves open to the interior of the display case, they should not have been put flat, 18" away from the top of a rectangular display box. It just makes them too hard to see. In a museum, pastels are hung at eye level, even if there is glass window 4" in front of the works.

I was glad that the exhibit mentioned the General Slocum steamship disaster on New York's East River in 1904. Visitors might also want to see the Titanic memorial lighthouse at South Street Seaport, the William T. Stead memorial at East 91st Street and Fifth Avenue (near a lot of museums), and the Straus memorial at 106th Street and Broadway (near the Church of St. John the Divine).

Don't make my reservations make you think I didn't enjoy the show. I did. This profit-making exhibit is much better-looking and better installed than the conceptually similar travelling "Star-Trek" exhibit I saw at the Franklin Institute last year. I don't remember if that one was run by the same company, whose stock-ticker symbol, PRXI, is posted at the exit.

report as inappropriate

• 1 Good To Know
• 2 I Like Your Writing
• 0 I Went And I Agree