Ghost of the Ocean

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, Nov. 5, 1999 | 9:41 a.m.

What: "Titanic: The Exhibition."

When: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily.

Where: Rio hotel-casino.

Tickets: $15.95 for adults, $9.95 for children under 14; $1 discount for Nevada residents with valid I.D.

Information; Call 252-7777.

Don't come to "Titanic: The Exhibition" expecting to catch of glimpse of the bejeweled Heart of the Ocean necklace that Kate Winslet wore in the blockbuster about the ill-fated ship.

You won't find the handcuffs that bound star Leonardo DiCaprio's character to a pipe during one of the film's most nail-biting scenes, or any of those drawings of a naked Winslet, as heroine Rose, either.

Instead of movie props, the exhibit, which opens today for an indefinite run at the Rio hotel-casino, will feature artifacts recovered from the most famous shipwreck in history.

The more than 200 pieces on display (items will be switched out on a rotating basis) were collected from the final resting place of the ship, which struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank to the ocean's floor -- some 2 1/2 miles down -- on April 14, 1912.

Lost that frigid night were more than 1,500 passengers and crew members.

Since 1987, RMS Titanic, Inc., which has exclusive salvage rights to the ship, has been conducting expeditions to the watery grave, and has recovered about 5,000 artifacts from the site.

Among the personal items: a pair of eye glasses, a pocket watch, a stock certificate, jewelry, coins and paper currency, personal letters and a silver-plated safety razor.

Items from the ship -- including pieces of china and crystal, the pedestal for the ship's wheel, the purser's safe door and a bronze cherub that likely decorated the grand first class staircase -- as well as a 20-ton piece of the ship's hull (known simple as the "Big Piece") have also been brought to the surface. Much of them have undergone preservation efforts.

Many of those pieces will be displayed as part of the Las Vegas exhibit, for which re-creations of the grand staircase, passenger staterooms and the ship's Veranda Cafe have been built. The artifact creating the most buzz, however, is the "D-Deck door," a 1,200-pound portal through which first-class passengers boarded the ship. (It broke away from the ship as it sank.)

RMS Titanic, Inc. has sponsored similar exhibits of the artifacts in a handful of cities in the United States, as well as in Germany, Switzerland and England. The closest to Las Vegas that some of the artifacts have previously been on display at was in Long Beach, Calif., at a smaller showing at the docked Queen Mary ocean liner.

The Las Vegas exhibit is being produced by SFX Entertainment, a company in the business of managing the tours of Broadway shows, producing music, motor sports and family entertainment shows and representing athletes and other show business personalities.

John Norman, vice president of SFX and executive producer of the exhibit, explains that artifacts within the 20,000-square foot exhibition space will be enhanced by "theatrical elements," such as dramatic lighting, "to even immerse people more into what it was like being on the Titanic."

Constructing replicas of the ship's features has been no easy task. No blueprints from the original grand staircase, as it appeared on Titanic, exist, Norman says.

"They had, I think, about eight carpenters (on Titanic) and (the shipbuilder) said, 'Build us a staircase.' ... You had to actually get in there (with photos) with a magnifying glass and say, 'OK, how wide do you think that molding is?' " (The staircase has been rebuilt before, for a previous exhibit.)

A "memorial room" will feature glass panes etched with the names of Titanic's passengers and crew -- those who survived are in bold type, those who perished in an "outline" font -- as well as an entire man's suit that was discovered inside a suitcase that was recovered from the wreck.

"That room is very powerful," Norman says. "And then there is this man's suit behind you. Basically, we don't know whose suit that is. The only thing we know is that it belonged to someone (whose name is) on the wall."

Most of the items on display, including the D-Deck door, have never been seen by the public, Norman explains.

"I think what's interesting about Titanic when you talk about the objects," he says, "is that I like certain things, but you may be attracted to something else.

"You might find the pair of eyeglasses to be the most powerful piece because you sit there and try to picture who wore those. Who were they made for? ... And they sat@the bottom of the ocean for 87 years and you can tie into the personal side of that, where I might take a look at the D-Deck door, which is not a personal item. It's just a huge piece of this ship that everybody's seen so many pictures of.

"You sit there and think, 'Boy, that piece lived through that night (of the sinking) and heard the screams and heard all the terror and sank and broke apart on the way to the bottom.' "

Dr. Stephane Pennec is a fan of the navigational artifacts. He has traveled on several expeditions to the wreck site. His company, Atelier LP3 Conservation, in Burgundy, France, oversees the conservation of artifacts brought up from the Titanic.

Pennec, an archeologist by trade, was featured in a Discovery Channel documentary about the Titanic, as well as the corresponding book, "Titanic: Legacy of the World's Greatest Ocean Liner" by Susan Wels (Time-Life Books, 1997). He has also participated in conservation projects at the University of Paris, Sorbonne.

Being in the submarine next to Titanic's remains, he says, is "really amazing. It's like (being in) the presence of a ghost."

While he appreciated the scientific accuracy of "Titanic" the movie, Pennec took issue with the plot early in the film, which had the submarine crew searching the wreck for the fictional Heart of the Ocean necklace.

"What I don't like about the movie is the way they try to be like (on) a treasure hunt, and that's not the case. It's a very scientific expedition," he says.

Still, the removal of artifacts from the Titanic site has been the subject of arguments, with one camp touting the items' historical value and another opposed to removing articles from what is the final resting place of those who died during the ship's maiden voyage.

Steven Biel, a Harvard University professor who penned the book "Down With the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster" (Norman, 1996), says, "Sometimes it's not a civil argument at all ... because there are enormous passions enlisted on both sides.

"The people who are in support of salvage and bringing up these artifacts make the arguments that, 'Look, if you really want to respect the memory of this ship and its victims, then it's important to preserve this stuff and allow people to see it and pay their respects to it and continue the memory of this ship and this disaster," Biel says.

"The people who are opposed to the salvage view the wreck site as a grave site and say that it's more respectful to leave it as it is. But what's telling to me is that both sides are advancing the claims that what they are really concerned with here is respect for the dead and ... preserving the memory of the disaster."

What is Biel's stance? "I don't think you can point to any other shipwreck that hasn't been salvaged. When shipwrecks are found the remains are brought up.

"If you want to be really unemotional about it, why does the Titanic, of all the wrecks, deserve special treatment? Why should just this one be left there as a grave site when any other wreck is fair game?"

Pennec looks at it from his archeologist's perspective, that the Titanic is no different than any other site where he would conduct a dig for artifacts.

"The other answer is that going on the Titanic wreck is very important for historic and scientific research, and all the objects we collect (compose) probably one of the best collections of the 20th century. It's really a symbol of that turn-of-the-century time."

Factor in the "corrosion and degradation" of the items that is occurring at that tremendous depth. "If we don't go now probably in another century we will find much less," he explains.

Norman says: "When you see people moved after coming to the exhibit and you feel that this exhibit has made an impression on them, and they realize that life is so fragile and certainly how the lives changed of all these people (on board) and all the generations that didn't happen because these people perished, I think it's really powerful and it's a history lesson."

The ship's demise was "a moment in history that I think we can share with the public," he says. "And if it's done the right way, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. We certainly present it in a very distinguished manner."

The lore surrounding the ship -- from its opulence to its passenger list to its tragic end -- likely plays a key role in the controversy, Biel says.

"This is an event of tremendous cultural (impact) and deep emotional stakes -- that's the answer. People would say, 'It's not just another shipwreck, it's the Titanic.' "

archive