Titanic Heroes Tour New York

Last month, Benjamin and I took an East Coast trip with Titanic Heroes, and one of our main stops was in New York. While the history books show the evidence of New York’s link to the Titanic story, there are also clear examples of the ship’s legacy throughout the city itself. Memorials to these lost souls are still standing in various parts of New York City. The RMS Titanic has been a longtime fascination of mine, and that fascination is part of what led Benjamin and I to creating Titanic Heroes back in 2012. Thus, when we came to New York, it seemed only natural for us to tour of the various memorials of Titanic throughout the city.

We started out with the remnants of Pier 54, the last remaining pier of the original Chelsea Piers from the early 1900’s. The RMS Titanic was a White Star Liner and was therefore scheduled to come into Pier 59. She of course did not, and her passengers were picked up by a Cunard Liner, the RMS Carpathia. Ironically, the Cunard and White Star Lines were rivals at the time. When the Carpathia came into New York with survivors, she dropped them off at Pier 59 and then docked at Cunard’s Pier 54.

When Cunard bought out White Star in the 1940’s, the Pier was renamed to illustrate this joining of the two lines. The Chelsea Piers complex used to be a major centerpiece of New York, and it’s incredible that Pier 54 is now its last remaining memento.

Circa 1904, this image is of the original Chelsea Piers in New York. Pier 54 is not included in this image, as it was further south.

Taken in 1950, this image shows the era when Cunard and the White Star Line, two rivals, were joined. This is Pier 54.

Pier 54 today.

Benjamin and Cady, at Pier 54 in New York.

Through the chainlink fence that guards Pier 54 today, a haunting reminder of the pier’s glory days is still evident.

The hundreds of dock remnants from the White Star Line’s harbor days. This is where old Pier 59 for White Star was located and where Titanic would have moored.

Circa 1912, the RMS Carpathia in Pier 54. This image was taken soon after the Carpathia dropped off Titanic survivors in New York.

We then walked a little ways further, down to Jane Street. After the Titanic sank, the Carpathia brought 705 survivors of the accident to New York. The city was unsure where to put them, but it was clear that they would be taken care of in some way. The American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute was a huge aid in this task. It took in many of the third class passengers who were too poor to find better conditions in which to stay. The Seamen’s Home was originally founded to provide an alternative for sailors who wished to stay away from the bars and saloons of New York. It was a Christian organization that provided food and housing to Titanic survivors. Additionally, a memorial service for Titanic was held there, with 125 crew members attending.

Second Officer Charles Lightoller was one of 125 surviving crew members housed at the Institute. He was one of 29 of Titanic’s crew held behind to be housed during the U.S. phase of the inquiry regarding Titanic. Onboard Titanic, Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive her sinking. He was also one of the first to realize that Titanic had hit an iceberg, and immediately began to lead women and children into lifeboats. He, with many others, spent the night on an upturned lifeboat in the freezing water. He was the last Titanic survivor picked up by the Carpathia.

Second Officer Charles Lightoller

The American Seamen’s Friends Society, circa early 1900’s.

Now a hotel, the building still stands.

This fish and anchor gargoyle is one of the only  remnants of naval history on the building.

Inside the hotel, this plaque was placed in honor of Titanic. Today, no words are visible.

This fountain is part of the Titanic memorial that was placed in the hotel.

A bus ride later, Benjamin and I found the next few Titanic spots in downtown New York. Grace Church has a stained glass memorial of one of Titanic‘s many heroes, Edith Corse Evans. Edith Evans was one of the many first class passengers onboard the RMS Titanic, but she was one of only four who perished when Titanic sank. Having made her way to the final lifeboat leaving the ship, there was only one seat remaining. Edith turned to the woman alongside her, Caroline Brown, and urged her to take the seat, since Caroline had children back at home. Grace Church commemorates her sacrifice with their stained glass window, but unfortunately we arrived ten minutes too late to go inside the church.

Grace Church today.

Benjamin and Cady in front of Grace Church.

Titanic memories and memorials are scattered throughout New York, and Astor Place is just one of them.

John Jacob Astor has a street named after him in New York near Grace Church, and it’s a very small memorial to the great man that he was in 1912. The richest man in the world, he was onboard Titanic with his new, pregnant wife, Madeleine Astor. When the ship was sinking, John Jacob Astor escorted his wife to the lifeboat, ensured that she was in safely, and then stood back to allow more women and children into the lifeboats. John Jacob Astor assisted many into the boats before perishing with Titanic. His heroism was an inspiration to many.

John Jacob Astor IV

From Grace Church, we proceeded onto the former headquarters of the White Star Line. This was the first stop for family and friends of those traveling onboard Titanic, as they searched for accurate information regarding who was saved and who perished. It was most likely here that William Byles, Father Thomas Byles’ brother, would have checked for information about his brother’s  fate.

White Star Line headquarters after new of Titanic’s accident reached New York. The office was flooded with inquiries and pleas for hopeful news.

Benjamin and Cady in front of the former White Star Line headquarters.

Today, the illustrious White Star Line headquarters has been transformed into a Subway.

Just down the street from White Star Line’s headquarters-turned-Subway, the church of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton stands. It stands, small yet resolute, against the other skyscrapers in New York’s busy landscape. This is where many female third class passengers were brought when the Carpathia docked in New York. Here, they were provided with kindness, food, and temporary housing. In 1912, the church was simply known as the Our Lady of the Rosary Mission, but today it serves as a shrine to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.

Benjamin and Cady in front of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Shrine, in New York.

Our final stop in our Titanic tour of New York was just a few blocks away from the Shrine of St Elizabeth Ann Seton. South Street Seaport has what might be the most obvious Titanic memorial in New York, but you still have to look closely for it.

South Street Seaport Memorial to Titanic

Built from public donations in 1913 and shaped like a lighthouse, this tribute to Titanic stands in a busy intersection. It was originally placed at a Seamen’s Institute on South Street and on top there shone a green light. The time ball on top struck noon each day. On the lighthouse there is a small plaque that dedicates it to the Titanic.

Benjamin and Cady in front of the South Seaport Titanic Memorial.

RMS Titanic plaque

Soon after the Titanic accident, the Nautical Magazine wrote about J. Bruce Ismay, “It is not given to everyone to be a hero.” Ismay has gone down in history as a coward, a man who took a seat in a lifeboat instead of standing back with the hundreds of other men onboard. But on the night of April 14, 1912, there were no shortage of heroes onboard the RMS Titanic. Men and women alike sacrificed their own lives for others, a principle that is no less incredible in 2015 than it was in 1912. 103 years after her sinking, the RMS Titanic is still evident throughout the city of New York, and her story is immortalized in the hundreds of heroic accounts that the accident spawned.

Since Titanic Heroes began with the story of Father Thomas Byles, Benjamin and I want to add our own memorial somewhere in New York, as a commemoration of this amazing priest’s sacrifice. For those unfamiliar with Father Byles’ story, he was a Roman Catholic priest, traveling on the Titanic to celebrate his brother’s wedding in New York. Father Byles was on deck praying when the ship struck the fatal iceberg, and he immediately went down to the steerage passengers, to inform them of the accident. Although he was offered a seat in a lifeboat twice, Father Byles refused both times, choosing instead to minister to those onboard. He went down with the Titanic, praying with passengers and offering general absolution. In memory of Father Byles’ sacrifice, Benjamin and I plan to add to the Titanic memorials in New York by focusing on the story of this heroic priest.

Benjamin and Cady in front of St. Paul’s Church. Father Byles’ brother, William, was married here after the sinking of the accident. A solemn Requiem Mass directly followed the ceremony.

There are many more memorials of Titanic scattered around the city that Benjamin and I weren’t able to visit. We’d love to see the different Titanic memorials that you come across while in New York or around the world. Take a picture of your adventures and let us know about it! Then tell us what you find and we’ll post the stories on our Facebook page.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s for life for their friends.” 

John 15:13

Heroes and Bystanders.

In October of 2014, Benjamin and I were honored to be part of the Hero Round Table. A conference put on by the Heroic Imagination Project, it brought together speakers on heroism from all over the world. We encouraged, challenged, and inspired as many young people as we could while turning our focus to the heroes of the past, present, and future. But the highlight of the weekend was hearing from and meeting Dr. Phil Zimbardo, famous for his work on the Stanford Prison Experiment and his psychological research afterwards. I didn’t know much about the experiment, so at the conference I bought Dr. Zimbardo’s acclaimed book, The Lucifer Effect, and began reading it. His discoveries and research both shocked and fascinated me, and the background of prison psychology created an incredibly interesting backdrop to continue on the conversation about heroes.

One of the most famous lines from Dr. Zimbardo’s post- study research is: ““If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples.” The college students that participated in the prison experiment were not bad apples. Instead, they were upright, normal men whose behaviors changed rapidly because of the situation they were put into. When seemingly forced and prodded into abusive situations and behaviors, it’s easy for us to become either perpetrators or bystanders, in order to avoid becoming a victim. The Stanford Prison Experiment and its remarkable findings in both prison and group psychology proves this to be true.

The timeless J.K. Rowling once wrote, “There is both light and dark inside each of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we truly are.” If there is a possibility in each of us for evil, there also must be a possibility in each of us for good. And that’s where heroism comes into play. Dr. Phil Zimbardo and Dr. Zeno Franco set out four requirements for what makes a hero (Banality of Heroism, 06/07, Franco and Zimbardo):

1) The heroic act must involve some type of quest.

2) The heroic act must have some form of anticipated sacrifice or risk attached to it.

3) The heroic act can be passive or active.

4) The heroic act can be sudden or persisting over a long period of time.

These four requirements bring together the key characteristics of what moves someone from being a bystander to being a hero. Placed under certain pressures, influenced by society, many people can commit acts that otherwise they would deem unthinkable (Zimbardo). The difference lies in whether or not we can see ourselves as heroes. At the Hero Round Table, Matt Langdon termed this “heroic imagination.” When we ourselves believe that we’re capable of heroism, we access the ability to act as such. This transfers the bystander effect to the heroic effect, which can come at great costs. But heroism is also one of the most rewarding acts toward which we can strive as humans. To quote Gerard Way: “Heroes are simply ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.”

Everyday Heroes

On June 4, a student at Seattle Pacific University took a risk that he knew could cost him his life. He was going about his everyday tasks – working in the office, cleaning, and filing paperwork. But when he saw a man loading his shotgun, Jon Meis knew that he had to do something.

Several weeks later, people all across Washington state and all across the nation know the name of Jon Meis. His actions potentially saved many individuals who would have simply been the latest death count of another horrific school shooting. But because one man took action immediately and without hestitation, the SPU shooting is a story mostly of triumph rather than tragedy. Because Jon Meis chose to be an everyday hero, countless lives were saved and deeper tragedy was thwarted.

Jon Meis, student at Seattle Pacific University.

Everyday heroes are those who make the choice to live nobly, heroically, in the day to day. Much can be said about sports ‘heroes’, historical heroes, and even superheroes. We talk about the characteristics that separate them from us and how we can be similar. But the best example of heroism that we can find is within ourselves. In this post, we’re going to look at what makes an everyday hero and the qualities inside of us that allow us to be heroes as well.

Hero has come to mean someone who does amazing and dangerous acts of bravery – someone who must go through fire and often come out victorious. We think of men like Beowulf, the earliest and oldest story of heroism ever told. We remember the Knights of the Round Table and the tales of their slaying of dragons and winning princesses.  While there are lessons to be learned from these stories and from these heroes, deeper truths of heroes are to be found within people like you and I.

What makes a hero? Traditionally, the answer is bravery, determination, and a will for the good. But to add to the traditional definition, a hero is someone who faces the overwhelming odds that tell him to stop trying. A hero is someone who sacrifices himself in small ways, every day, for the greater good. That’s the point behind the 3G Principles (GIVE what you have, GIVE more than you take, and GIVE it your all.) Living the 3G Principles is a difficult task to fulfill; my family and I struggle with them all the time. But that backdrop of heroism, lived in small ways, prepares us all for our Titanic moment.

How so? Take “Give what you have” as an example. If I’m walking up to the grocery store, and I see an elderly woman going ahead of me, an example of living the 3G principles would be for me to run up and open the door for her. It’s a simple task, one that doesn’t require much thought or difficulty. But it’s most definitely a sacrifice, a small death to self. When it’s hot outside or when it’s raining, I want to be in that door first. I don’t particularly want to stop and open the door for anyone other than myself. Heroism is putting my own selfishness aside for the sake of others. Becoming a better person is a key part of being a hero. “The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.” -the Dalai Lama

But what about the bigger moments of life? The times like Jon Meis had to face, when a psychopath began shooting others? The night of the RMS Titanic, when men chose to step aside to give their place to others? How do we go from opening the door to others to giving up a place in a lifeboat or stopping a shooter? We go from one to another by dedicated acts of service, every day, working our way up to the big moments. No matter how good of a person you are, if you’re not conditioned to lay your own wants aside, you won’t be prepared for that ultimate act of heroism.

The Boy Scouts have a concept called “Do a good turn daily.” The idea being that if, every day, you do at least one good deed for a fellow human being, you’ll be not only a better person but a better steward of God’s gifts to those around you. We want to do something of the same concept. We are currently in the process of adding a new page to our website, and on that page will be a sign up form. We’re asking individuals to commit to making one sacrifice a day, in order to become an everyday hero. The commitment statement is below:

I commit to making one sacrifice per day in honor of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I commit to living the 3G Principles (GIVE what you have, GIVE more than you take, and GIVE it your all) as the best way to live this legacy and combat selfishness and bullying.

Stand with us to commit to being an everyday hero, so that you can prepare for your Titanic moment.

Real Life Heroes

Why do stories touch us? What makes a book character jump out of the page and inspire us in ways that little else can?

For me personally, books have always meant a lot to me. Reading the stories of people who struggle with many of the same things I do connects with me on a personal level, and I can easily celebrate their victories and empathize with their failures. Some of my biggest heroes are characters in stories that I have read.

But in 2014, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find real-life heroes. Celebrities fail us more often than not, as their personal affairs are splashed on the news and we as the public know far too much to emulate them. Those we come in contact with on a day to day basis can disappoint us as well, because none of us are perfect and shortcomings we have soon become evident to those around us. Harrison Salisbury once said, “We do not live in the age of heroes. This is not the era of Jefferson, Lincoln, or Commodore Perry. Nor even of Charles Lindbergh. The politicians of our day seldom remind us of Franklin D. or Eleanor Roosevelt. Athletes signing five-and ten-million- dollar contracts do not resonate as did Babe Ruth.”

However I believe that all of us have the ability and the capacity to be heroes in everyday ways. Maybe we won’t be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice, but we can absolutely sacrifice ourselves on a day to day basis in little things, and in doing so, prepare ourselves to be called upon for something bigger. 

Jeremy Wuitschick is a great example of an everyday hero who acted in an extraordinary way. He was on his way to school one morning when he saw the bus driver and experience a seizure of some sort. Jeremy had just read a comic book in which the superhero stopped a car successfully by pulling the keys out of the ignition, so the 13 year old jumped into action. He left his seat, turned the wheel to the right, pulled to the side of the road, and pulled the keys out. He then told his fellow students to call 911. Jeremy then began to do chest compressions on the unconscious driver.

Jeremy Wuitshick

Jeremy was able to act quickly and effectively. He was courageous in the face of danger, assessed the struggle before him, and jumped into action immediately. All of those are character traits befitting a hero, and Jeremy’s story shows that age doesn’t matter when it comes to heroism.

We’re much more likely to find ourselves disappointed in the stories of actors and musicians when trying to find a personal hero. But we can’t focus only on the negative stories that we see around us. Instead, it’s our job to find the quality inside ourselves that can make us a hero. We all have the ability and moreover, the responsibility, to act heroically. But it’s our actions, not our abilities, that determine whether or not we become a hero.

“My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results… but it is the effort that’s heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.” 
-George R.R. Martin

Who We Are

Titanic Heroes is a 501(c)3 educational non profit created by myself and my brother, Benjamin (14).

We created it two years ago with the vision of inspiring each generation to give more than the last and our mission is to inspire others to live heroically in everyday ways.

We do that through creating products and presentations that Teach, Challenge, and Inspire others to live the 3G Principles – GIVE what you have, GIVE more than you take, and GIVE it your all. The 3G shield can be seen on the top, and the many different meanings that come from the 3G shield will be explained in future posts.

Check back here for exciting updates on what we’re doing, stories about heroes of the Titanic, and new surveys and polls! This will be a great way for you to connect with Benjamin and I, and we look forward to hearing from you!