R.E.M. Titanic

I hope this is not out of place, as a former member of the US National Maritime Historical Society, based in Peekskill, NY I have had the opportunity to attend some of its meetings and had some work published as in its "Sea History" quarterly magazine, which was documenting two Hudson River tidal sloop wrecks in Bear Mountain State Park, below Revolutionary War forts Clinton and Montgomery, though they later, as documented in photographs. At one of their meetings, which coincided with the large section being lifted off the bottom of the RMS Titanic site, which coincided only by the date I think, that section came very close to the surface and slipped back into the depths when the harness broke, or slipped, I felt compelled to ask the then Maritime Historical Society President, Peter Stanford, why the Titanic exhibit was kept from New York City, where there is also a monument to the ship in the South Street Historic District. He replied it was over the designation by the U.S. Congress, as to the significance of the site, and out of respect to its law, the Society had supported it. It means, however, that an exhibit that has seen many visitors in other cities, would never come to the ship's original destination, an arrival it never would have, after it hit the iceberg and tragically sinking, with some of New York City's residents aboard. You might imagine, it was quite a meeting, policy and practice and the dynamics of the expedition to recover the part, which had to be retrieved again in the middle of it. Perhaps the people in charge should re-examine their policies? Not to start an argument, the observations of an American anthropologically trained archaeology technician who once stood in the hold of a circa 1730's ship buried in New York City (just outside the historic district) in winter and still wonders could we have saved this? George Myers posted Dec. 7, 2005 @ Underwater Archaeology forum