JERSEY CITY, N.J. - For many families of the World Trade Center victims, there is no cemetery to visit, no tidy grave on which to lay flowers, only a smoking pile of rubble in downtown Manhattan.

So to pay respects to their loved ones, many ride a ferry across the Hudson River. Then, wearing hard hats and carrying red, white and blue carnations, they stand for 15 to 20 minutes at a platform at the foot of the ruins.

There, National Guardsmen stand at attention; police officers remove their hats. The relatives sometimes point to the rubble, trying to identify which tower, which floor where their loved ones were last seen.

"It just makes it more real," said Jan Lillianthal, whose missing cousin, Steven Lillianthal, worked for bond trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald. "You really see it. You smell it."

The visits are part of the support offered by New Jersey's Family Assistance Center.

Located in an old railroad terminal, it has been serving more than 50 families and survivors of the terror attacks every day since it opened Sept. 19, said John Hall, an assistant state attorney general.

Hundreds of volunteers and agencies help victims' families and survivors with such things as applying for a death certificate and reporting a car crushed by concrete.

They also hand out teddy bears before the ferry ride from Liberty State Park, as close as New Jersey gets to lower Manhattan's changed skyline.

About 350 people have made the trips since they began Oct. 6.

One man told Bob Bellan, a state official who runs the family center: "This was my son's funeral. This is the closest I'll ever be to him again."

Lillianthal, who went to the site two weeks ago with six family members, said she is troubled by not knowing exactly how her 38-year-old cousin died. Did he go up to the roof? A stairwell?

"You'll never know, but at least you see what actually happened," Lillianthal said.

Susan Beatini went to ground zero with her sister on Tuesday to see where her husband, Paul, 40, worked at Allendale Insurance. His body has not been found.

"It's where he is," said Beatini, 38. "It was easier for me to say goodbye because that's where he is."

Beatini said that going to the family center was "the best thing that I have ever done." It was there that she applied for state benefits for crime victims, canceled her husband's driver's license and requested money for a funeral and therapy.

At the center, members of a victims' rights organization wearing blue denim shirts escort families around the old terminal into an atrium decorated with ferns, flowers and American flags.

Most of the early visitors filed missing persons' reports and turned in hairbrushes, razors and other DNA samples of their loved ones so that their remains can be identified.

More recently, victims' relatives and workers who lost jobs have sought financial help. The Salvation Army has given out gift certificates for groceries and child care and made mortgage payments.

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On the Net:

Family Assistance Center: http://www.state.nj.us/wtc/index.html