Time Square and Titanic Exhibition Visit

On Saturday 16 Jan, the weather was warm enough in New York City for me to venture out to visit Manhattan for the first time since I arrived back home in mid-Decemeber. I heard of the Discovery Titanic Artifacts Exhibits near Time Square, in the former New York Times printing office building so decided to take a look.
I took the New York Subway F-train from the 71-Continental Station as it is normally an express to Manhattan. This weekend , the F-Train was traveling local in Queens due to work on the subway line. Getting off at the Bryant Park Station, it was less then a block to Time Square.
Time Square is alot different now since I was growing up in New York 30 years ago. The area is full of electronic bill boards and modern buildings. I found the Titanic Exhibits off 44th Street across from the famed Shubert Alley. There was actually a fairly long line to get tickets and took about 15 minutes to purchase one ticket and an audio phone for 26 dollars.
The interesting thing was at the entrance to the exhibits, the ticket attends give you a "boarding pass" with the name and information of a passenger on that ill fated ship. The ideas is at the end of the exhibit one finds out if that passenger survived the accident.
They did not allow pictures to be taken of the artifacts which was sad as there were some interesting items in the exhibit. Most of the artifacts were small personal items behind a glass case with information about the object. Explanations were made on the different classes of passengers from First Class, Second Class and Third Class. Objects like shoes, brief cases, perfume bottles, hair brushes and shaving razors were displayed. The Exhibit also had full scale replicas of the different Class cabins and an interior corridor.
Information billboards were around all the exhibits. What I liked was information on the different passengers from the famous to the ones just traveling for a new life.
At the end of the exhibition, a video of the recovery effort by Discovery was presented on what they are going to preserve the Titanic remains. In the final room was the list of survivors and dead from this terrible disaster . I got my "boarding pass" and looked to see if the person named survived or not. They listed the passengers by Class and Crew.
Overall I thought the exhibit was "OK" but thought they would have more of the ship's hardware and cover more on the Third Class passengers and more audio/recording tour. The passage through the exhibit were narrow at points which slowed down the flow of people going through. If it wasn't a post-Holiday crowd, it might have taken much longer to get through all the exhibit.
After leaving the Titanic Artifact Exhibit, I walked around Time Square, trying to familiarize myself with more of this new part of New York City, well at least for me it was new. I found an ESPN Zone sports bar and went in to grab a bite to eat. Actually never been inside this establishment even though I watch ESPN all the time. Not many people there as most of the Christmas Holiday crowd went home.
I had a good time at the Titanic Exhibit, visiting Time Square and grabbing a meal a ESPN Zone. Hopefully I will be out more to Manhattan now that I have more time after moving my brother to his new house.

Photos I took can be seen Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45316&id=1507778102&l=8eaf0170d9