Eyewitness News truck covered in posters of the missing at WTC in September 2001

MANHATTAN (WABC) -- On the night of Sept. 12, 2001, an Eyewitness News van was parked outside Bellevue Hospital, and somebody asked if they could place a poster on the windshield with a picture of one of the missing people at the World Trade Center.

Soon, reporter Anthony Johnson reported the next day, the entire news van was covered in posters of the missing, placed there by family and friends of the victims hoping beyond hope that their loved ones might be found alive.

"Quite a bit of family members and friends have been standing out here, just kind of gazing and looking for anything that they can get" as they hoped loved ones would turn up at the hospital, or somebody would know where they were.

The posters were seen all over New York City in the days and weeks after 9/11, especially at hospitals and large public gathering places like Union Square, becoming sidewalk memorials to the victims who never came home.

This report aired on Eyewitness News the afternoon of Sept. 13, 2001.