Memorial sites still drawing crowds

“We came here to offer prayers,’’ Carlucci said yesterday as she went into a healing service, the first time she’d been in the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Mission Hill. “I will be visiting this church a lot.’’

The midday Mass usually sees roughly 200 people; yesterday, that number was closer to 600 or 700, said the Rev. Philip Dabney.

“Ted Kennedy planted a seed,’’ he said. Many of the visitors he talked with were former parishioners who had moved away and were reminded how much the church had meant to them, while others were there for the first time.

“Seeing the funeral just re-awakened the memory of the church for them,’’ he said.

Marie Austin, 40, a former parishioner who now lives in Malden, said she had not been to the basilica for about a year and a half, but a flood of memories of the church and thoughts of the senator came rushing back in recent days.

Kennedy had helped her family emigrate from Haiti when she was 4 years old.

“I will make more effort to go there now,’’ she said of the church.

Gone yesterday were the crowds and tight security; all that remained inside the church were six industrial-sized fans and two flower arrangements left over from Saturday’s funeral Mass. A steady stream of people poured into the basilica, better known as the Mission Church, eager to catch a glimpse of the place that had been photographed and beamed into homes throughout the world.

A stack of church bulletins put out at 8 a.m. had vanished by 11 a.m., church officials said.

For Brad and Gay Woods, a retired Milton couple, the Mass they attended at Mission Church was their second for the day, but after seeing the church on television, they said they came to see if it was as beautiful as it looked on their screen.

“We wanted to share in that piece of history,’’ Brad Woods said.

Terri and Robert Holt of Bridgewater were in town to drop off their daughter, Kelsey, a junior at Wentworth Institute of Technology, and decided to stop to see the church.

“I feel touched,’’ Terri Holt said on the church’s steps. “It’s beautiful; it’s peaceful.’’

Katie Forscheski, 23, can see the church from her apartment window, and after having her street closed to traffic yesterday, she came to see the interior. Ross Venuti, also 23, who came with her, said they’ve always seen the façade and wondered what it was like inside.

“To actually go in and see how beautiful it is - it’s kind of an eye-opener,’’ he said.

In the church’s rectory, three books were filled with condolences that started out “Dear Ted,’’ or “Dear Kennedy family,’’ signed by people from across the country.

At the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum yesterday, lines still formed for the opportunity to leave condolences.

Bob and Carol Greisman, of Chicago, had meticulously planned their trip to Boston to include a visit to the library, then considered avoiding it because of the widely reported lines from days earlier, but decided to brave the crowds, which turned out to be much more manageable compared with those on Thursday and Friday.

“We were constantly looking for Teddy and clips of Teddy,’’ Carol Greisman said.

Jessica Woodard, 65, was in town from Daytona Beach, Fla., visiting her daughter, and was catching a breather, sitting on her walker, after touring the library.

“It was quite emotional,’’ she said. “It feels spiritual.’’

She said she lost two children within days of one another - one of them to breast cancer - and like so many others, felt a connection to the senator.

“I cried so hard yesterday,’’ she said.

Kristin Lewis, 36, of Omaha, a US Senate intern in the mid-1990s, teared up as she stood outside the library while recalling long conversations with Senator Kennedy.

“He would sit and talk with you for hours - he was very kind, very approachable,’’ she recalled, later adding, “It was amazing how handsome he was.’’