REMEMBERING THE TITANIC

The hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic has me thinking back to BIANKA's time in New York. I was living on board BIANKA in New York back in the 1990's while working in that city.  The piers that once lined the Hudson River were for the most part in various forms of decay. Some were nothing but, bare pilings poking up from the water at low tide. They were remnants of the golden days of transatlantic passenger travel and bulk shipping. Some of the piers had been converted to other uses which is how BIANKA came to be docked at Pier 59.  Pier 59 is now part of the Chelsea Piers Sports complex which includes a marina which was where I docked BIANKA for five years:

Pier 59 was also going to be the destination of the Titanic when it completed it's maiden voyage across the Atlantic. It never made it. But, parts of it did. When the rescue ship the Carpathia bought the survivors of the Titanic to New York it first stopped at Pier 59 to drop off the Titanic lifeboats that it had acquired in the rescue efforts.

I also often walked past Pier 54 where the rescued passengers of the Titanic disembarked from the Carpathia. New York City actually has quite a few sites which are linked to the Titanic tragedy. You can see a very good tour of them here and here.

For a look at what happened to the ship that night on the Atlantic one hundred years ago:

and some what it looks like lying on the bottom: