RMS Titanic

[blacknorth]

This subject of this ship makes me very angry.

The bad luck and ill-fated nature of the Titanic isn't just a matter of the ship herself, but also of the area of Belfast in which she was built.

The Harland & Woolf offices have been allowed to fall into ruin, and the whole area resembles a ghastly abandoned industrial estate. The current redevelopment consists of demolishing the original buildings and fixtures and replacing them with cheap build hotels made of steel and glass. Most of these remain unfinished because of the property crash. When the tourists go out there all they see is a wasteland.

Belfast City Council are so idiotic that they recently paid a substantial sum of money for a replica artefact manufactured for James Cameron's film Titanic while they were allowing the area where the ship was built to be destroyed and thus genuine artefacts were lost forever.

A few years ago a fellow appeared on local radio claiming he had rescued designs and schematics for many ships from public hire skips outside the H&W offices - it appears they had been dumped, destined for a landfill.

Desperately trying to claw back some credibility after these embarrassments, the Northern ireland Assembly purchased the Nomadic from a French junking yard. Why they did so no-one really knows as its connection with the Titanic is tenuous and its connection with Belfast is nil - it ferried several passengers to the ship, elsewhere. Thus we're reduced from being the authors and builders of the Titanic to scrambling around trying to buy up second-hand links to the ship - because we shamefully destroyed our first-hand links to her.

And people wonder why we had troubles for 30 years.

[pyan]

Whereas we know exactly how valuable the memory of the ship could be to a city - there are plans in motion for a huge new dedicated museum in Southampton, there's a walking trail around the many memorials to the passengers and crew (most of which came from the city), and plans to commemorate the centenary with all sorts of events...


Ideas for new Titanic museum

[Drachir]

Originally Posted by pyan

Whereas we know exactly how valuable the memory of the ship could be to a city - there are plans in motion for a huge new dedicated museum in Southampton, there's a walking trail around the many memorials to the passengers and crew (most of which came from the city), and plans to commemorate the centenary with all sorts of events...


Ideas for new Titanic museum

Any plans to recognize the Titanic victims burial site in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Final Destination for many of the Titanic victims: Halifax

[blacknorth]

Originally Posted by pyan

Whereas we know exactly how valuable the memory of the ship could be to a city - there are plans in motion for a huge new dedicated museum in Southampton, there's a walking trail around the many memorials to the passengers and crew (most of which came from the city), and plans to commemorate the centenary with all sorts of events...


Ideas for new Titanic museum

The Belfast plans featured in that video are pure fantasy - they were the developer's dream scenario if everything went according to plan and were drawn up during the height of the property boom. Now Northern Ireland is bust and the European funding has largely fallen through.

I've no doubt they'll produce something for 2012 - but why has it taken 100 years, and why have the pump-house and offices been allowed to fall into disrepair?

Sorry for my abrasive tone in these comments, but I can't help it - over the past 25 years I have watched Belfast being reduced from a grand Victorian City to a small ugly town. Those of us concerned have learned to fear redevelopment plans - they usually mean the destruction of fine and intricate buildings to construct vulgar and by-the-numbers malls, all commerce, no common sense. Those doing the demolition work talk about but progress, but progress has been the clarion call of every scumbag wrecker in history.

[Dave]

Anyone interested in the Titanic might be interested in this website: Encyclopedia Titanica : Titanic Facts, Survivors Stories, Passenger and Crew Biography and Titanic History

It has as complete a list of the passengers as is possible, along with their stories. I came across it through family history research (a brother-in-law of a distant cousin of my wife went down on her. His wife survived.)

It has pretty much anything you ever want to know about the Titanic.

[marklord]

If you're interested in maritime disasters then I'd recommend reading Gustav Grass's Crabwalk which tells the story of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German ship sunk in the Second World War by a Russian Submarine. The Gustloff is famous as the single biggest maritime disaster with the loss of 9,000 people, many of whom were women and children fleeing the Russian armies invading East Prussia.

Crabwalk uses fictional characters and has a lot to say about the nature of Germany now and guilt for the past, but there is also a lot of detail about the ship and what happened to it as well - well worth a look.