Q&A with Titanic Tour Guide Dave Gardner

This year we’re excited to present a brand new tour, Titanic Graves of Woodlawn Cemetery, led by Titanic tour guide Dave Gardner. We sat down for a Q&A with Dave to get inside the head of this city’s foremost expert on the Ship of Dreams.

Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche

Every year I try to highlight the stories of one or two passengers or crew who particularly fascinate me. This year, I’m fascinated by Joseph Laroche, one of only two known passengers of color aboard Titanic.

Titanic, Central Park, and Other Tours for Spring!

Things are starting to look a lot like spring in this town, which at Boroughs of the Dead HQ means that our winter hiatus is officially over! We’re back to running our full roster of weekly tours starting on Saturday, March 12th, ushering in the season with our classic Manhattan tours, and presenting some of our signature seasonal and specialty tours come April and May!

Lucky Star: Violet Jessop

When speaking about Titanic, phrases like “unlucky,” “ill-fated,” and even “star-crossed” get bandied around a lot. Yet for all the bad luck surrounding the boat, there were a great number of people who exhibited extraordinarily good fortune and were able to survive the sinking or even stay off the ship entirely due to one twist of fate or another. But what about the woman who survived not one but two seafaring disasters?

Titanic First Person Accounts: Lawrence Beesley

  Some of the most compelling Titanic first-person accounts come from Lawrence Beesley’s The Loss of the SS Titanic. Second class passenger Beesley was a scientist and author, and he’s one of those rare people who seem equally gifted in both fields. He writes crystalline clear prose that is devastating without being histrionic: “Imagine a […]

Scribes and Sailors of Woodlawn Cemetery

Yesterday I headed up to Woodlawn Cemetery for a little visit with my hero Herman Melville. Anyone who knows me knows about my Melville/Moby-Dick obsession (I have one), which is why it’s a little strange that I’ve been living in New York City for ten years and hadn’t visited his grave in Woodlawn. In my […]