It is truly a wall of prayer. There are pictures, poems, posters, floral tributes and even a leaflet with a novena to the patron saint of hopeless cases, St Jude.
The chance of pulling someone alive from beneath the 110 floors of each of the World Trade Centre towers has become hopeless. Just days after relatives and friends put up the posters and flyers with appeals for information, they have returned with other basic information.
Now it is the most ordinary and intimate items that may in the long run identify their loved ones, such as unwashed laundry, hair from their combs, brushes and toothbrushes, and even stubble from their razors. They have brought dental records, photos of tattoos with descriptions of their exact locations and have given swabs from inside their mouths.
This follows the news from New York's chief medical officer, Dr Charles Hirsch, that DNA analysis would be the most likely way to identify a large number of those killed in the attacks. The examiner's office can't say when it will get the results, just that it will contact relatives.
Pier 94 on Manhattan's west side has become the repository of this genetic intelligence. It is part of a family assistance unit opened up with the help of the American Red Cross and aimed at aiding people who have lost relatives.
Here, they go through the traumatic process of filling out forms and giving whatever information they can, descriptive, physical or genetic, which they believe could help in identifying their loved ones, as the rubble of the World Trade Centre is sifted through.
The families of the 20 Irish or first-generation Irish-Americans are also involved in that process.
The photos and the names on the wall in front of the centre, represent a mini-United Nations - Broomfield, Garcia, Benedetti, Rivera, Makimoto, Schunk and Onda. And then there are Monaghan, Moore, Farrelly, O'Mahony, Murphy, Kiely, McShane, Costello.
Robbie Noonan's family offered their genetic information too. His parents gave mouth swabs as part of their efforts to identify him. The 36-year-old Irish-American worked for bond traders Cantor Fitzgerald and his older brother Kelly said yesterday that "we pretty much accept that he's gone. He's passed on."
Kelly knew his brother was gone from the moment he saw the towers collapse. Today the family will hold a memorial service at St Mary's church in Greenwich, Connecticut, to celebrate his life.
Darren Bohan's family have also offered genetic information. His parents gave pieces of their hair to help establish a DNA match. Aged 33, he worked as a temp for an agency and had been sent to the offices of AON in the twin towers.
His aunt, Noreen Kahostorf, left the flyer on the wall at Pier 94 and other locations.
Noreen, whose mother Norah Corr was from Cavan, is waiting for the emergency crews and firefighters to say "that's enough" - that there's no point in checking any more through the rubble.
Then the only question will be whether the DNA of relatives will match the remains of any of the dead recovered from "Ground Zero". A number of private companies have been brought in to assist in the analysis of the personal items and the swabs. The New York State police department will double-check all the analyses done by the Laboratory Corporation of America, which has more than 900 offices in the States, by Myriad, a Utah-based company, and by Celera, a firm in Maryland.
The results are now a matter of time.
