One of history's most ill-fated voyages will come to life this weekend in the XL Center in downtown Hartford.
From the gilded halls of its first-class quarters, to the Spartan bunks of its third-class cabins, to the still fragrant perfume vials of an English perfume maker on his way to America to sell his goods, the recovered treasures of the RMS Titanic, and stories of those who were aboard, will be on display in "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," which opens Saturday for a monthslong run.
Today marks the 96th anniversary of the day that the "Unsinkable" Titanic embarked from England for New York on its first and only voyage, which ended — as every viewer of the Oscar-winning film knows — April 15, 1912, when the great ship sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
On board were Edvard Lindell and Elin Gerda, a young Swedish couple in third class who were on their way to Hartford, where an acquaintance of theirs lived. As the liner sank, they slid down its deck; Edvard made it to a lifeboat, clutching the wedding band of his wife who did not make it. He didn't survive the night either.
On Wednesday, with the exhibit still under construction, the scent of Saalfeld's perfumes mixed with the smell of fresh paint; the drama-inducing music in each gallery mixed with the noise of the galleries' construction. The big, refrigerated, put-your-hands-on-it-and-feel-the-cold iceberg was still a work in progress.
But it all should be finished by Saturday.
The exhibit is a venture of Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions Inc., the company that brought "Bodies Revealed" to downtown a few months ago and that, in 1987, laid claim to the Titanic wreckage. The Hartford show is one of five in progress or being planned worldwide.
The wreckage was discovered by Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel in a joint U.S./French expedition on Sept. 1, 1985, at 1:05 a.m., according to the exhibit. Ballard's Institute for Exploration is based in Mystic.
Just as intriguing as the re-created boiler rooms, cabins and artifacts — from a bracelet with the name Amy in diamonds to one of the ship's two aluminum megaphones to a shoe sole — are the stories of people headed to Connecticut.
Susan Webber was going to her nephew's Rocky Hill home from her own home in Cornwall, England. She was among the lucky and got a spot in a lifeboat. After a night at sea, Webber was rescued, taken to New York and made her way to Rocky Hill. She is buried there.
She was one of the ship's 705 survivors. More than 1,500 died.
Another survivor was William Sloper, a New Britain native who was returning from a three-month European vacation. After the ship struck the iceberg, its crew had trouble convincing its passengers that the Titanic was in danger and that its lifeboats should be filled.
The first lifeboat was lowered only half full. Sloper was in that lifeboat, but a story in the New York Journal the day after he arrived in New York said wrongly that he had dressed as a woman to secure his spot and labeled him a coward. Sloper nevertheless made it to New Britain. He is buried there.
Ticket prices are $22 for adults, $18 for children, $20 for seniors, and a $1 facility surcharge on every ticket.
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