A new exhibit has steamed its way into Charlotte. The Titanic exhibition gives community members a closer look at the world’s most famous maritime disaster.
Community members receive a boarding pass when they enter Titanic: The Exhibition at the Park Expo & Conference Center in east Charlotte.
“It has the name of an actual passenger who was on the ship,” an exhibit guide said. “And toward the end of the walk-through, you’ll find out your person survived it or was lost at sea.”
Visitors stop to watch a short video before boarding.
“She is the most famous ship in history,” the narrator says. “This is the story of the designers and builders who created her. This is the story of the passengers and crew. This is the story of the Titanic.”
Julie Allsep, 66, who is visiting from Virginia, said she is intrigued by the past.
“I love history, love the ocean, love ships,” Allsep said.
Allsep stood near a ship captain’s hat and a photo of Capt. Edward Smith. Smith was born in Staffordshire, England, and was the captain of the Titanic when it hit an iceberg in 1912. The ship was on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York when it sank.
Allsep said she can only imagine what the captain felt.
“Devastated, perplexed, sad, disappointed, scared,” she said. “Probably a whole array of feelings.”
The sinking of the Titanic resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,500 people, including Capt. Edward J. Smith, in the North Atlantic.
“I hope that his family members who might be alive today will know that everything didn’t happen in vain,” Allsep said. “That we won’t forget.”
The exhibit’s boarding passes include the names, ages, and classes of the passengers who were on the Titanic. The exhibit also includes more than 300 artifacts, such as postcards and letters. Replicas of the ship’s boiler room and cabins on deck are also part of the experience.
Standing in a red-carpeted, white-walled first-class hallway is Mark Lach, the creative producer of the exhibit. He said he hopes the exhibit and boarding passes make people more appreciative.
“Just to value life, and to know that the people we’re with — tell them I love you every day,” Lach said. “Because, like these passengers and crew aboard the Titanic, you just never know.”
The wreckage of the Titanic was discovered 73 years after it sank by a joint American-French expedition. The wreckage was found about 350 miles off the Canadian coast in international waters and about 2.5 miles below the ocean’s surface. Lach said he was able to see the Titanic from a submersible.
“That was, as you can imagine, very emotional, very exciting, very fun,” Lach said. “But, at times, you just had to push back from your porthole and take it all in, and know that that was that ship that held all those passengers and crew.”
About a dozen people gathered in a room near the end of the exhibit, holding their boarding passes as they stared at a massive wall covered with the names of passengers. Sharon Burt, 59, was one of them.
Burt’s boarding pass belonged to Helen Margaret Bishop. The 19-year-old was a first-class passenger who survived along with her husband, Dickinson Bishop. It is reported the couple was returning from their honeymoon to their home in Michigan.
“It just helps you imagine what they were going through,” Burt said. “It’s making me sad to think about it.
“I’m excited that she survived,” Burt said.
Burt said the exhibit helped her connect more with the Titanic story.
“I only saw the movie, so you don’t know how much of the movie is true,” she said. “But it made me more interested in seeing this, to get more facts about it.”
Titanic: The Exhibition currently docks at The Park Expo & Conference Center. The iconic ship will sail off from Charlotte to complete its maiden voyage after Labor Day.
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