They are posted on store windows, phone booths, lampposts, newspaper racks.
They are taped to cardboard mats on the sidewalk.
The handmade fliers are everywhere on the blocks surrounding the New York Armory at Lexington Avenue and 26th Street, where relatives of the World Trade Center missing have been gathering, hundreds of desperate pleas reflecting a mix of hope and denial.
Tonyell McDay, Marsh Technologies, 97th Floor, Building 1
25, 5-4, 130 pounds
Wearing ruby ring on pinky and college ring on right ring finger
We’d appreciate any info, we’re extremely worried for her!!!!!
They list contact names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses. They are accompanied by graduation photos, wedding photos, family portraits, pictures taken at restaurants and on vacations, pictures where the missing are smiling, dancing, holding drinks.
One shows a man posing with the Heisman Trophy.
Another shows a man sitting in an airplane, young daughters on each side.
Larry Curia, 104th Floor, 1 WTC
We love you, daddy.
Please come home.
Curia’s wife put tape around the edges on Friday, while a man in a red cap next to her posted a flier of his own. His brother, Michael Tucker, also worked on the 104th floor, for the Cantor Fitzgerald brokerage. They scan each other’s fliers. “Good luck,” he said.
Victoria Alvarez Brito
Marsh & McLennan — 98th Floor, Tower 1
5-5, has tattoo of scorpion on right arm
We have faith. Keep holding on.
Joseph Mistrulli
Joe is a NYC carpenter — Local 157, working in Windows on the World
God and angels up above
Send us home the one we love
This was a scene every bit as devastating as the rubble 2 miles away. Inside the armory, relatives who filled out missing-person reports one day earlier now came back with their loved ones’ hairbrushes, toothbrushes, dental records — anything that could help identify remains.
On the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, all the prayers here seemed to have been exhausted. Now, on a Friday morning when rain fell like teardrops, even the ink on the fliers began to bleed.
“They wanted a blood sample from me, because it might help match with his DNA,” said Bill Carson, whose brother James also worked on the 104th floor for Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm missing 700 of its 1,000 employees. He silently watched others post fliers on a row that’s called the “Mural of Hope,” but he knew this had become a mosaic of remembrance for some of the 4,673 who haven’t been seen since Tuesday’s terror.
There were white faces, black faces, Hispanic faces, Asian faces, Indian faces, Middle Eastern faces. There were Christian faces, Jewish faces, Muslim faces. There were bond traders and restaurant workers, lawyers and carpenters, insurance executives and secretaries. It truly was a World Trade Center, workers from every corner of the globe, every layer of society.
Vassili G. Haramis, 56
Washington Group International
91st Floor — Building 2
Mohammed Shajahan
Marsh & Mclennan
95th Floor — World Trade Center 1
Aida Rosario Vazquez
DOB: 12-13-58 5-5 180 pounds
Reddish brown hair
Guy Carpenter Brokerage, 92nd floor
There were descriptions of tattoos, jewelry, scars and body markings. There were descriptions of the clothes they wore to work on Tuesday morning.
Andrew Steven Zucker
Harris Beach, 85th Floor, 2 WTC
27, 6-1, 300 pounds
Grey Izod Shirt
4 inch scar on lower back from surgery
Michael Cunningham, 39
6-3 210 pounds
English Accent
Tattoo of Mickey Mouse on right arm
Gold wedding ring
Pierced ear
Not circumcised
Scar on forehead
Eurobrokers, 84th floor, WTC 2
There were husbands and wives.
Chris Cramer and Anne Martino Cramer
Both worked for Fiduciary Trust
On 99th and 88th floor of WTC-2
Relatives and friends took long drags on cigarettes, walked with scattered looks and huge bags under their eyes. Some didn’t want to talk, others wandered over to the media holding pen behind police barricades to share their stories. Some are starting to realize they’ll never see their loved ones again, but many others still cling to hope, even though the reality is pretty much on those walls. Almost all the fliers involve people who were on the upper floors of the 110-story towers, at or above where the hijacked planes crashed, above any escape.
“These people are still in shock,” said Leslie Miller, a psychiatrist who’s helped with grief counseling at various locations this week. “They’ve reverted to an almost childlike state, when you want to believe anything, when you want to believe that magic is possible. Next week is when it’s really going to sink in. Next week is when they might start breaking down.”
Noell Maerz
Eurobrokers 84th floor — 2
Tattoos: Left thigh — Turkey
Right thigh — Dolphin
Veronique Bowers, 28
Windows on the World
“We love you Ronnie”
A man rushes up, talks in rapid-fire bursts. “Have you seen some of these people? Do you know anything? I’m missing my wife.”
No, I’m afraid not.
He walked away into the rain.
Michael Mayo can be reached at .
