The Titanic and SCI
25 South Street
After almost a decade of fundraising, SCI was ready to lay the cornerstone of its new million dollar home for sailors at 25 South Street. The city’s philanthropists had come out in full support of the project. JP Morgan led the effort with a $100,000 donation, while John D. Rockefeller donated the second highest amount with a respectable $50,000. Henry C. Frick, Augustus D. Julliard, Andrew Carnegie, and a trio of Vanderbilts (Frederick, William and Alfred) were also among SCI’s founding donors. With such high profile support, the cornerstone laying ceremony for the new building was shaping up to be a grand event. The date was set: April 16, 1912. Hours before the guests assembled in the auditorium of the unfinished building, tragic news struck the New York waterfront: the unsinkable Tianic was lost.
