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Every weekend we bike over the Pulaski Bridge between Greenpoint and Long Island City. A couple of blocks past the bridge on the Queens side, there is this strange memorial to the RMS Titanic, wedged into the facade of one of the brick row-houses. Does anyone know the story behind this? Who created it, and who maintains it now?
And the Titanic Special Collector's Edition DVD has 45 extra minutes for girls now in their twenties to remember why they swooned over DiCap in the first place!
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I used to live down the block. The gentleman that maintains the facade (and can be seen sweeping, polishing, or otherwise tidying up out front every morning) in fact lives in the building. Local lore says that he claims to have died during the sinking of the Titanic in a past life. Also, I think he may drive a Volvo with a blow-up bugs bunny in the passenger seat. Brilliant.
It was just put together by the guy that lives in that house because he was interested in the titanic.The part about him thinking he died on it in a former life and rides around with a blow-up bugs bunny in his car sounds like some very silly urban mythology to me.
I forget where offhand (perhaps forgotten-ny?) but there was an article/write up and interview tiht he guy that created it recently, and he seemed pretty down to earth...
NY1 did a short piece on him during the summer. He's just a history buff with a creative streak. We need more people like him in this city!
From the upcoming Forgotten NY book:
The left side of 11th Street as you drive north from the Pulaski Bridge presents a fairly uniform façade of three-story brick buildings and they all look pretty much the same, except for 47-08. It sports an American flag, a couple of green awnings…and a plethora of photographs and plaques dedicated to RMS Titanic, the largest steamship in the world in April 1912, deemed unsinkable before an iceberg sent it to the bottom, killing 1490 passengers and crew.
Collector Joe Colletti assembled the shrine in 1984 after seeing "Raise the Titanic." A member of the Titanic Memorial Society, he has assembled hundreds of newspaper clippings, movie posters, photographs, and correspondence with survivors both inside his apartment and facing the sidewalk, some of which stops pedestrian and even some vehicular traffic outside his brownstone.
Dave Herman of City Reliquary has told me the Titanic memorial is a direct inspiration for his operation.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Here's the NY1 story.
For what it's worth, he's unfailingly courteous (he says hello to me nearly every morning) and I'm fairly certain that he doesn't drive a Volvo, with or without an inflatable rabbit in it.
Personally, I'm sick of hearing about the Titantic. I think Leo forever ruined it for me...