The men and women start lining up around 9:45 a.m. along an imposing gray wall of the James A. Farley Post Office, that grand Manhattan landmark with sweeping front steps and soaring columns facing Eighth Avenue.

But they do not see this postcard view, for they are waiting outside the back door — on Ninth Avenue. They chat like neighbors who bump into one another at the mailboxes, which, in a way, they are. For while they live scattered all over town, sleeping in shelters or stoops or sidewalks, they share the same mailing address: 390 Ninth Avenue, the general delivery window of the city’s main post office.

“This is where homeless people get their mail,” said Jerome Dinkins, 58, waiting in line for the door to open at 10 a.m.

It is the last known address of Armando Calderon, 59. His older brother, Benjamin Calderon, sends letters from his home in Chicago. Each letter is a line cast into the vast sea that is the streets of Manhattan, some baited with a little money or a prepaid phone card, pleading for a response.