Boston’s memorials to Marathon blast victims grow

Ever since the Boston Marathon bombings last Monday, memorials to the victims have sprung up at the barricades surrounding the crime scene.

The biggest is on Boylston Street, about three blocks from the finish line and the explosions. As of 5 p.m. Monday, the FBI had returned Boylston to the city, which means the memorials will be moved to Copley Square Park, as the street is reopened.

“There’s comfort here,” said John Bourgea of Malden, Mass., as he stood near the memorial on Sunday morning.

It was a glorious spring day. The bells at the Arlington Street Church pealed. And there were hundreds of people streaming by the memorial on Boylston, about three blocks from the site of the explosions.

A little girl place some flowers on the ground near the barricade. The flowers joined a pile of items that included teddy bears, Red Sox hats, T-shirts, Boston Bruins balloons and homemade signs that read “Be Strong.”

“I work right around the corner, so I’ve been here all week and I just can’t seem to not come by here,” Bourgea said. “It’s such an emotional thing. It’s just good to come here. I’m not sure what it is but I can’t stay away.”

Rigo, who lives in East Boston, was standing quietly like everyone else.

“Just to pay my respects,” he said. “I can feel all the sadness. Once you get closer you just start feeling really sad. You can feel it right away. It’s really bad. You can feel it right away.”

It’s been a week now. The second suspect is in custody. The first funeral was held Monday. Krystle Campbell, 29, a restaurant manager, was buried in Medford.

The crime scene in downtown Boston covers several city blocks, including two historic Back Bay Churches, Old South and Trinity, that couldn’t hold services on Sunday. But other churches opened their doors to those congregations.

Now that the FBI has given the crime scene back, Boston officials hope to re-open the area sometime this week.

“We are satisfied there are no more explosive devices in the area of Boylston Street,” Police Commissioner Ed Davis said.

Mayor Thomas Menino said, it’s time for the city to move forward

A woman named Kelly stopped by the memorial Sunday, on her way to a Boston Bruins game.

She’d brought some flowers with her.

“I think it was an unfortunate way to bring everybody together in a way that they weren’t brought together before,” she said. “Not great circumstances, but certainly a comforting feeling to know that everybody is pulling together and sharing in the grief and the sadness, and also the unity of the city.”