Pier 54 - New York City
Although the RMS Titanic’s original destination for her maiden voyage was actually Pier 59, 54 was the spot that the passengers who survived the disaster actually stepped down onto dry land, as it was the planned docking place for the RMS Carpathia which was able to save only around seven-hundred of the Titanic’s 2,224 passengers. One might make the mistake of thinking that perhaps since Pier 59 did not see the arrival of the White Star Line’s prized ship, that it was there that should have been connected with disaster or tragedy. As it turns out, this is the opposite. In May of 1915, Pier 54 saw the departure of the Cunard Line’s 1906 RMS Lusitania, a ship that had made over two-hundred crossings of the Atlantic Ocean. On the 7th of May, the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat and all 1,198 passengers were killed, including 128 American citizens, an event that would eventually lead the United States into World War I.
