LOS ANGELES, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- The exhibition Titanic in Photographs is now on display on the retired ocean liner Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, showcasing more than 100 photographs and a few rare artifacts from the ill-fated ship.
The exhibition takes visitors onto the decks and into many of the staterooms, with names like Smoking Room and Turkish Bath. There's also the 1st Class Lounge and the Grand Staircase, where Jack and Rose met formally in the 1997 movie "Titanic."
"There are a couple of hundreds of artifacts here, some of them onboard the ship themselves," Everette Hoard, the Commodore at Queen Mary told Xinhua on Thursday. "We have a watch, in particular, that was dropped by a passenger hurrying to a life boat to abandon ship as the Titanic was sinking."
There's gold pocket watch that was dropped by a 1st class passenger as he rushed to one of the last lifeboats, and was later picked up by one of Titanic's crew members.
One of the highlights of the exhibition also includes the only surviving White Star Line (the company owned and operated Titanic) lifeboat, virtually identical to those used by Titanic's passengers, as they waited to be rescued from the icy waters of the North Atlantic after Titanic foundered.
Alongside many of the images are display cabinets containing over 150 genuine artifacts from Titanic's identical twin sister ship Olympic, which served until 1935. Both of them used the same tiles, furniture, and decorations from the same manufactures. Since almost everything on the Titanic is still deep in the North Atlantic Ocean, these items from Olympics bring the photographs to life, transporting the visitor back in time and placing them in the picture.
"As you walk through, you will be able to look at these beautiful photographs, for instance where the clock is lying in a glass case, you will be able to look at a photograph of the room in the Titanic and see that exact same clock, or a one exactly like that."
Located in the Port of Long Beach, the Queen Mary features a rich maritime history and authentic Art Deco decor. At the time of her maiden voyage in May of 1936, she was considered the grandest ocean liner ever built. The Queen Mary officially retired in 1967 and now moors permanently at the port of Long Beach as a historic hotel.
Titanic in Photographs runs through July 2018.
