Armed with photos and medical reports, hundreds of parents, siblings and friends of the World Trade Center’s missing descended on the 69th Regiment Armory searching for word of their loved ones.
Heidi Bauer, clutching a photo of her brother, David Bauer, broke down in tears after filing a missing-person report with detectives posted in the armory at Lexington Avenue and 26th Street.
“If anybody sees or hears from him, tell him we need him back. He has three kids,” sobbed Bauer, holding a photo of her brother for news cameras.
The families of custodians, clerks, brokers and corporate executives milled together, some stoically holding out hope while others fell to pieces in grief.
“What’s keeping my hope up is that I know my brother is a survivor,” said Jeanine Nardone. Her brother, Mario Nardone, worked on the 84th floor of World Trade Center’s north tower. “He would never have given up on us, so I won’t give up on him.”
NYPD detectives at the armory, dubbed the Family Crisis Center, catalogued 1,061 missing persons yesterday, with the number likely to grow as the grim task went on into the night.
Mayor Giuliani visited some of the relatives poring over lists of names at the armory yesterday evening and was stunned by the enormity of the task of accounting for the missing.
“I fear this’ll get worse. It’s going to get bigger and bigger,” Giuliani said glumly.
Rosemarie O’Keefe, director of the mayor’s Office of Community Assistance, said the city expected to finally have lists of victims who had been treated at hospitals. And she expected the names of the dead who had so far been recovered and identified.
“The families are comfortable and receiving all of the attentions that we as New Yorkers can give them,” said O’Keefe, adding that the armory had been decorated with flowers and flags and filled with tables of food donated by shops and restaurants.
Detectives, preparing for the difficulty of identifying victims in the horrific pile of rubble, were quizzing relatives about any scars or tattoos. Families were asked to bring in medical and dental records to help fill out the nine-page missing-person forms.
“They even asked us if there was any specific items in my father-in-law’s wallet or his pockets,” said Robert Cholowsky, who was searching for Rocco Medaglia, 49, of Melville, L.I. “This is what we have to do to feel we did our part.”
By early afternoon, the line of people waiting to get inside the armory stretched a full city block, from Lexington Avenue to Park Avenue.