City Preserves Items Left At Makeshift Boston Marathon Memorial

BOSTON (CBS) - The makeshift memorial to the Boston Marathon bombing victims at Copley Square has grown to massive proportions and it reflects sympathy and hope from people around the world.

Now, with rain in the forecast the next few days, the city has taken steps to preserve some of the items.

"This is amazing, it's an extraordinary outpouring of people's sympathies and compassion and grief," says John McColgan, the director of the Boston Archives Center in West Roxbury. "This is a record of the passion of the people of Boston and beyond."

McColgan is now protecting tens of thousands of signatures and messages, so that they may be included in a permanent memorial someday.

There are also medals that some of the runners earned, and bibs that are now being protected from the elements.