Paying tribute on the streets

ByBONNIE D. FORD
April 16, 2014, 12:50 AM

— -- BOSTON -- They stacked up 10 or 12 deep behind the barricades a half-block beyond the marathon finish line Tuesday in pelting rain and wind gusts that turned their umbrellas inside out. They filled in the corner steps of the Old South Church like a mute choir on risers and listened for the silence that would descend at 2:49 p.m., siphoning away the terrible sounds of a year ago.

They couldn't see the brief ceremony about to take place, and they couldn't get any closer. They understood. Police, bomb-sniffing dogs and metal barricades separated them from the finish line on Boylston Street, but it still belonged to them. They were exercising their freedom of assembly.

The faint tones of a bagpipe reached them, and then "God Bless America," and then the absence of noise took over, nothing audible except the wind whistling through Copley Square, rattling banners and jackets.