a sanitation facility that was used to load garbage barges headed for the Fresh Kills Landfill. The only section of 13th Avenue that remains is behind the sanitation facility, now a parking lot for sanitation trucks. The landfill is now called the Gansevoort Peninsula. The new piers were designed by the architectural firm of Warren and Wetmore, which also designed Grand Central Terminal. Under contracts let by the New York City Department of Dock and Ferries, the Chelsea Section Improvement, as it was officially called, replaced a hodgepodge of run-down waterfront structures with a row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades and formed the docking points for the rival Cunard and White Star Lines. Early 20th century Most of the major trans-Atlantic liners of the day docked at the piers and they played pivotal roles in the and disasters. The two most memorable moments for the pier were with the Lusitania and Titanic. The left her Cunard Pier 54 in 1915 before being torpedoed by German submarine U-20. The was destined for the White Star pier 59 when she sank. Survivors were rescued on Cunard's . The Carpathia dropped off the Titanic lifeboats at Pier 59 before going back south to Pier 54, where she unloaded the passengers and survivors. Thousands of people assembled at the dock to greet the ship. During the summer of 1920, a dramatic rally was organized on July 31 at the White Star Line docks. This was to send off Daniel Mannix, the Irish born Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia who had been outspoken on the English rule in Ireland, and successfully led anti conscription campaigns during WW1. A reported 15,000 New Yorkers turned up at Pier 60 at the foot of West 20th street to make sure Lloyd George would allow Mannix passage to Ireland. A luxury liner row was built between West 44th and West 52nd Street to handle larger liners in the 1930s. After New York moved its luxury liner piers to the New York Cruise Terminal between West 46th and West 54th Street in 1935 to accommodate bigger ships such as the and the , the Chelsea piers became a cargo terminal. During World War II the piers were used to deploy troops. The piers had catastrophic fires in 1932 and 1947 that destroyed some of the south piers. New construction resulted in new cargo piers used by the United