This wall does speak

NEW YORK -- "If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again."\nThese words are engraved on a gray slab of rock, along with the initials "ASD" scratched into the bottom right-hand corner. It's propped up against a memorial aptly named the "Wall of Tears," located in Battery Park.\nThe wall is hard to miss because it's marked by a police department, fire department and U.S. flag, which are all secured to a tall pole that sways in the breeze but is weighed down by giant, cream-colored concrete blocks with law enforcement emblems painted on the sides.\nBeneath the flags and awning lie gifts to the deceased.\nPatches of the paramedic, fire, police and port authority departments that came from all over the world to help, plaques, helmets, baby shoes, caps, T-shirts, stuffed animals, posters, mugs, rosaries, flowers, candles, badges, jackets, notes, happy birthday cards, and water and beer bottles line the base and are posted on the wall.\nHandsome men and women smile out from posed and impromptu photos -- crinkle lines still gracing their timeless faces and life still dancing in their eternally twinkling eyes.\nBut the memorial that jars the fresh attention of new visitors has now become part of a daily routine and life for New Yorkers.\nTheir emotions appear to be worn down as they walk, jog and rollerblade by the memorial, giving it a cursory glance at best.\nBusinessmen and women nearby dine on tables fashioned out of the same gray and pink flecked marble material that makes up the wall set up not 40 feet away. \nEmployees of the neighboring Merrill-Lynch and Mercantile Exchange buildings sit on stylish metal patio chairs and enjoy the scenery of an area of town that used to be closed off as a crime scene. \nPark enforcement official John Kaiser says at first the wall was a shrine for families and friends, but is now primarily visited by tourists.\nKaiser, who inquires about the status of Bob Knight, has endearing gaps in his teeth, gray sideburns and dark stubble as rough as his voice.\nHe wears a green shirt, hiking boots, black shorts weighed down by 20 pounds worth of equipment and FILA shades that disguise his eyes. His authoritative front is belied by a patient willingness to answer visitors' questions repeatedly and on a daily basis.\nEnforcement officials alternate shifts supervising the memorial, although they aren't too concerned about someone damaging the memorial because no one has ever vandalized it.\nBrendan Touhey, who works in the Mercantile Exchange, says he has to pass a memorial everyday. In his building is a memorial dedicated to 12 people from his office who died when they attended an annual meeting in the World Trade Center.\nNew York resident Paul Higgins, who was standing near the wall when the World Trade Center collapsed, says New Yorkers don't bypass memorials out of apathy, but out of fear. \n"It's difficult for people to talk about and even more difficult for them to come here," Higgins says. "It scares me to relive what happened. It's still unpleasant for me to think about"