NEW YORK CITY, touched to the heart by the great ocean calamity and desiring to do what it could to lighten the woes and relieve the sufferings of the pitiful little band of men and women rescued from the Titanic, opened both its heart and its purse.
The most careful and systematic plans were made for the reception and transfer to homes, hotels or institutions of the Titanic's survivors. Mayor Gaynor, with Police Commissioner Waldo, arranged to go down the bay on the police boat Patrol, to come up with the Carpathia and take charge of the police arrangements at the pier.
In anticipation of the enormous number that would, for a variety of reasons, creditable or otherwise, surge about the Cunard pier at the coming of the Carpathia, Mayor Gaynor and the police commissioner had seen to it that the streets should be rigidly sentineled by continuous lines of policemen
With all arrangements made that experience or information could suggest, the authorities settled down to await the docking of the Carpathia. No word had come to either the White Star Line or the Cunard Line, they said, that any of the Titanic's people had died on that ship or that bodies had been recovered from the sea, but in the afternoon Mayor Gaynor sent word to the Board of Coroners that it might be well for some of that body to meet the incoming ship. Coroners Feinberg and Holtzhauser with Coroner's Physician Weston arranged to go down the bay on the Patrol, while Coroner Hellenstein waited at the pier. An undertaker was notified to be ready if needed. Fortunately there was no such need.