You Guys, There’s a ‘Titanic’ Ghost Tour — And It’s Better Than the Movie!
Holy crap — the ghost tours of all ghost tours is here!
To mark the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest movies of all time, writer Eliza Thompson decided to go on a Titanic ghost tour put on by Boroughs of the Dead, a NYC-based provider of ghost tours.
Thankfully, she shared her experiences with Cosmopolitan.
“Going into the tour, I expected [a tour guide who’s more interested in history than ghosts] , just because I couldn’t imagine how a tour about a shipwreck that didn’t even happen here could possibly include compelling ghost stories,” she wrote. “The people on the Titanic died more than a thousand miles from New York, so how could they be haunting random houses on W. 11th Street?
“I learned I was wrong about my tour guide, Andrea,” she continued. “Before we started our journey, Andrea asked all of us to say what interested us in this tour, and only one other person besides me admitted to coming because they liked the movie… As soon as Andrea started talking about premonitions and coincidences, though, I lost all interest in asking about James Cameron’s masterpiece.”
Eliza brought up a novel written in 1898, ten years before Titanic was ever designed, called Futility, which is about an “unsinkable” ship without enough lifeboats, that sinks in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. Sound familiar?
“Premonitions are a common theme when it comes to the Titanic,” she explained. “One man who died in the wreck, W.T. Stead, published a short story about a steamship without enough lifeboats 26 years before setting foot on Titanic, and in 1892, he wrote yet another short story about a ship rescuing survivors of a ship that hit an iceberg.”
She continued: “We stopped at Grace Church to see a cenotaph for Edith Corse Evans, one of only four first-class women who died in the wreck, and had our visit soundtracked by some extremely atmospheric choir music. Later, we walked by the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue, and I distinctly heard the word ‘Satan’ waft out of the window. Trust me: You haven’t lived till you’ve been on a ghost tour where you hear someone not related to the ghost tour say ‘Satan.’”
But there’s more…
“The best part of the tour, however, was the very end, when Andrea took us up on the High Line to view the remainder of Pier 54, where the Carpathia took the survivors of Titanic,” she goes on to say. “I had walked by this archway plenty of times, and even gone to the attached park for concerts once or twice, but always assumed it was some remnant of an unfinished construction project. I was wrong, obviously, and a little sad to find out that the city has plans to eventually demolish the pier.
“I haven’t had time to watch Titanic since taking the tour, but I’m not sure I even want to — Jack and Rose’s tepid love story seems a lot less interesting to me now that I know about W.T. Stead and his crazy premonitions. Besides, why waste three hours on something I’ve seen a hundred times when I could read something new? Specifically Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door, which Andrea recommended for people interested in the more paranormal aspects of the shipwreck. Goodbye, Heart of the Ocean; hello, mysterious floating orbs.”
Who’s down to go on a ghost tour?!