New York's Irish community joined in mourning Mr Kennedy yesterday at a memorial service at St Patrick's Old Catholic Church in the Little Italy section of lower Manhattan.
As bagpipes played, more than 600 people crowded into the church, which was founded in 1815 and has been a centre for the Irish immigrant community since. Hundred more gathered outside.
Mr Brian O'Dwyer, founder of the Emerald Isle Immigration Centre, said the idea for the service emerged as a way for members of the large New York Irish community to pay their respects. s Vineyard last Friday night. Their bodies were recovered Wednesday after an extensive search led by the US Navy. The bodies of Mr Kennedy, his wife, Ms Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Ms Lauren Bessette, were recovered from the sea off Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday after an extensive search led by the US navy.
Father Colm Campbell, who spoke at the Mass, said Mr Kennedy had become "a role model for the Irish of this generation".
"These young immigrants like young Kennedy because he was his own man. He didn't go into politics and he didn't flaunt his wealth."
A native of Belfast, Father Campbell said he had prayed for families who had suffered accidents and murders but never for a family who has endured all.
Mr Barrie Robinson, Ireland's Consul-General in New York, also spoke.
Mr O'Dwyer recited a poem, Lament on the Death of Owen Roe O'Neill, which was recited by Robert Kennedy at the funeral Mass for his brother President John F Kennedy.
Elsewhere in the city where Mr Kennedy lived for most of his life the grieving continued.
In the modest TriBeca neighbourhood where Mr Kennedy and his wife lived, lines of mourners stretched around a city block. New York City police officers did their best to keep the line moving as it passed in front of an industrial-looking apartment building on Moore Street.
The humid New York City air was thick with the odour of roses and other flowers which most people left on the doorstep, along with notes and photographs.
Just around the corner, on White Street, the home of Mrs Kennedy's sister, Ms Lauren Bessette - which she had recently purchased at a cost of more than $900,000 to be near her sister - was relatively quiet. Bouquets of flowers could also be seen.
Flowers and memorial notes were being placed all around the city in places associated with Mr Kennedy. The sidewalk on Broad way outside the offices of George magazine, which Mr Kennedy edited, was also turned into a makeshift shrine.
Near Saint Thomas More Church on East 89th Street, a caravan of television satellite trucks and cameras assembled by 7 a.m. yesterday, more than 24 hours before a planned memorial service held by the Kennedy family.
Ms Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Mr Kennedy's sister, has taken charge of the event, choosing a small church where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis worshipped.
Other members of the Kennedy family had argued for a large service at St Patrick's Cathedral but ceded to Ms Kennedy Schlossberg's wishes.
AFP adds: President Clinton and the First Lady, Mrs Hillary Clinton, will lead the US in mourning at the memorial service in New York today at Saint Thomas More Church.
The service will be off limits to reporters and photographers at the request of Ms Kennedy Schlossberg. However, the family's efforts to maintain some privacy is doing little to lessen the media frenzy surrounding the funeral arrangements.
The public and the press will not be allowed inside church today but police expect thousands of spectators - and cameramen - to gather outside.
The Clintons' presence will lend the private ceremony an official aura even though the President has stressed his family's close personal ties to the Kennedy clan and the dead couple.
The White House did not say whether Mr Clinton would speak during the service.
A reception for some 250 people will follow the Mass at a nearby convent where Ms Kennedy Schlossberg went to school as a child, local media reported.
The Bessette family is also planning a memorial service. The private Mass will be held tomorrow at 7 p.m. (local time) at Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, the New York suburb where the Bessette sisters grew up.
Millions of Americans watched their television sets yesterday in hope of catching a glimpse of the sea burial ceremony.
All the leading US television stations interrupted regular programming to carry the burial live from helicopters and boats hovering around the USS Briscoe.