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(Crowds lined the route of a motorcade that carried the casket of the late Senator Ted Kennedy on from the family's Cape Cod compound to the city of Boston Thursday, where the Senator's body will lie in repose for public viewing at the JFK Library through Friday. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.)
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(Bostonians mourn one of their own.)
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Mourners filed by the casket of Sen. Edward Kennedy as he lay in repose Thursday in his slain brother's presidential library, paying their respects to one of the longest-serving U.S. lawmakers and the last political giant of the Kennedy family.
Thousands of people had waited for the public viewing at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, lining up for hours before the doors opened around 6 p.m. ET. Officials were allowing people to enter in groups of 35 to 40.
The casket arrived after a motorcade traveled 70 miles from the family compound in Cape Cod past sites of significance to his life. Thousands of people along the route cheered as the motorcade drove through Boston, bidding farewell to the last of the famed Kennedy brothers and mark the end of a national political chapter that was both triumphant and tragic. He is to be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, near Washington, D.C.
With a bugler playing taps, a rifle squad firing a salute and pallbearers representing each branch of the military, Kennedy will be laid to rest in a private funeral. Plans call for Kennedy to be buried in early evening near his slain brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
The motorcade started its trip in Hyannis Port, at the Cape Cod home where Kennedy's family attended a private Mass. Eighty-five Kennedy relatives traveled with the senator's body to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, where the Senate's third-longest-serving member will lie in repose.
Among those accompanying Kennedy were nieces Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his late sister Eunice; and his son Patrick Kennedy, a U.S. congressman.
Kennedy's body will lie in repose for a two-day public viewing. A contingent of friends and family sat vigil, including a federal judge, the family of an Iraq war soldier, a Sept. 11 widow, former staffers, and longtime friends.
For many who lined the route that the hearse carrying his body took from Cape Cod to Boston, it was hard to untangle Kennedy’s larger-than-life role as statesman from his role as neighbor and local celebrity, whether he was taking a turn conducting the Boston Pops or throwing out the first pitch for the Red Sox.
“It was Teddy’s home team. It just seemed appropriate to leave him the cap,” said James Jenner, 28, placing a Sox cap he was wearing near the entrance to the library. “It symbolizes everything that he loved about his home state and everything he was outside the Senate.”
Before the motorcade departed, mourners crowded the end of the barricaded road leading to the family compound.
Virginia Cain, 54, said she walked about 2 miles from her summer home in Centerville so she could watch the procession and witness history.
“I can remember where I was when President Kennedy died, and I’ll remember where I was when the senator left Hyannis Port,” she said.
A bouquet of white and yellow lilies lay on the lawn of David Nylan’s vacation rental near the Kennedy home, where a U.S. flag flew at half-staff in Kennedy’s memory.
“The Kennedys and Hyannis and the Cape, they just kind of go hand in hand,” said Nylan, 38, who said people had been stopping near his house to leave flowers since Kennedy died late Tuesday.
On Main Street in downtown Hyannis, flags, flowers and personal notes lay at the base of a flagpole outside the John F. Kennedy Museum, where about two dozen people gathered.
Someone had placed an old Kennedy campaign sign with a new inscription: “God bless Ted, the last was first,” referring to his ascension to political greatness after his two older brothers were assassinated.
Several enlarged photos showed events in Kennedy’s life — meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., reading to a school girl. A rosary hung over a picture of Kennedy standing in his office.
Echoes of the Kennedy history were hard to miss as the motorcade traveled through the city.
Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, put her hand over her heart as the procession rolled down Hanover Street in the North End neighborhood, past St. Stephen’s Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and where Kennedy later eulogized her. The crowd applauded, and his niece Caroline and other family members acknowledged them with a wave from their cars.
“When a member of the Kennedy family passes, it’s like family. It feels like family,” said Jeanne Pagano, 54, who was on the sidewalk outside the church. “I really loved the man and the family. I loved them.”
Joanne Caruso, of Newton, picked up her sons — 12-year-old Tonino and 9-year-old Christian Sarandrea — early from summer camp to say goodbye to Kennedy. The boys carried a photo of their father, Antonio, with Kennedy.
“We get to be a part of a historic history, a historical moment,” Tonino said as they waited. “The day we went to see Mr. Kennedy.”
After leaving the church, the motorcade traveled across the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway created by the Big Dig highway project, which Kennedy helped shepherd through the Senate. The park occupies the same stretch of land once dominated by an elevated expressway named after John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, Rose’s father and a patriarch of the Kennedy-Fitzgerald clan.
Kennedy’s motorcade then paused at Faneuil Hall, where the historic bell rang 47 times — once for each of Kennedy’s years in the Senate.
From there the motorcade passed the Massachusetts Statehouse with its life-size statue of John F. Kennedy, which was opened to tourists Thursday for the first time since just after the Sept. 11 attacks.
There, too, onlookers watched silently, waiting for the motorcade to turn and pass 122 Bowdoin Street, where Kennedy opened his first office as an assistant district attorney and where President Kennedy lived while running for Congress in 1946.
People gather to pay respects
After passing by the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in the city’s Government Center complex, the motorcade headed to the library, where Kennedy’s body will lie in repose until his Saturday funeral. Just before arriving at the museum, the motorcade will pass the JFK stop on the city’s subway system.
Scott Howe, 46, and his 15-year-old son, Austin, from Laurel, Md., were among those gathering outside the library and planned to pay their respects to Kennedy on Thursday night.
“He seemed to really care about his constituents,” Scott Howe said. “The Kennedy family — despite the money they had, had a big streak of altruism.”
The family planned an invitation-only private memorial service for Friday evening at the library.
All the living presidents were expected to attend the funeral Mass on Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in Boston’s working-class Mission Hill neighborhood. President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver the eulogy.
Shortly before the Mass, 44 sitting senators and 10 former senators will be among a group of about 100 dignitaries who will pay their respects to Kennedy at the library before making their way to the church.
Included in the group is former Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, who pulled Kennedy from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed near Springfield, Mass., in June 1964. The pilot and a legislative aide were killed, and Kennedy suffered a broken back that caused him pain the rest of his life.
“The Impossible Dream,” Kennedy’s favorite song, from the musical “Man of La Mancha,” will be played at one of the services, according to the person familiar with the arrangements.
The city may soon have one more Kennedy landmark. Planning is already under way for a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate.
Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his assassinated brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.
Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his slain brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.
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