At Attractions About the Titanic, Pondering the Fate of the Titan

Jo-B Sebastian had just entered an exhibit about the Titanic and its more than 1,500 lost passengers when a friend received a news alert on his smart watch on Thursday afternoon: the five people whose submersible had gone missing during a deep dive to explore the Titanic’s wreckage had been declared dead.

“It just felt so eerie to be like we added five more to the tally,” said Sebastian, a 34-year-old musician who lives in New York City, as he took in “Titanic: The Exhibition,” in New York.

Ever since the submersible, the Titan, disappeared in the ocean depths last Sunday, its fate had riveted the world. Many were fascinated by the search and rescue efforts, hoping the missing explorers would be found alive. Others wondered why wealthy people would spend so much money on a dangerous tour of a disaster site. And others were drawn by its connection to the Titanic, whose sinking in 1912 remains one of the most famous maritime disasters in history, still the subject of films, exhibits and shows.

“It kind of feels like a perfect storm,” Sebastian said as he toured the exhibit, which he had bought advance tickets for, before the Titan went missing, as a surprise birthday gift for his friend Stefan Hut, an economist.

The final room of the exhibit featured a row of three screens displaying watery footage of the wreck that had been filmed by OceanGate, the company that operated the Titan, and whose founder and chief executive, Stockton Rush, was among those who died.

Peter Lazard, a 61-year-old consultant from South Africa, sat watching the footage.

“The irony is now you’ve seen what these people were trying to see,” he said. “We’re sitting safely watching this and these people died to see what we’ve seen.”