If you were passing through New York forty years ago, you might well have been heading to the West Side piers to board any one of a score of liners that regularly sailed for Europe. That chapter, as some of us can’t mourn too frequently, has long been closed, but if you visit the city this fall anytime from October 6 to December 9, you can catch “Ships of State,” an exhibit saluting the great liners at the Paine Webber Art Gallery in midtown Manhattan.

The exhibit has been organized by the Ocean Liner Museum, an entity almost as ephemeral as the vessels it celebrates, since for all the wonderful memorabilia donated by its aficionado members it has yet to settle within four walls; it pops up from time to time when a friendly sponsor offers space. Thanks this time to Paine Webber, the passenger manqué can revel in some three hundred artifacts celebrating the culture of transatlantic travel: Deco posters, tableware, menus, scale models, deck plans, furnishings, and photographs. All the famous lines and ships will be represented—and with them, plangent dreams.

(PaineWebber Art Gallery, 1285 Avenue of the Americas, 212-713-2885, admission free.)