Tattered in half, frayed to shreds, or tangled up in fire escapes, American flags in New York City are taking a beating – to the dismay of advocates who say the Stars and Stripes should be treated with respect as a symbol of our country.

Chapter 1 of Title IV of the United States Code says that flags no longer fit for display should be destroyed with dignity. But as the images of athletes casually draping the flags over their shoulders in Olympic medal ceremonies in Turin, Italy, show, the provisions of the code are not enforced; courts have challenged such enforcement as an infringement on free speech.

While frayed flags may not trigger le gal action, they can trouble patriotic passers-by. And some worry that the treatment of the flag that was flown throughout the city after the attacks of September 11, 2001, is a sign of a deterioration of national pride since then.

The coordinator of one of the city’s main flag disposal ceremonies, Gil Schweiger, said flag code violations are prevalent across the boroughs.

“It breaks my heart,” Mr. Schweiger, who is a ranger at Staten Island’s Pouch Camp for Boy Scouts, said. “It’s a shame that this happens all the time. It’s important for honoring the men and women who lost their lives, and the people who are fighting for that flag now.”

He said most violations happen because people forget about their flags and they fall into disrepair.

Near the World Trade Center site, a worn flag hangs with graying stripes and frayed edges from the Astor Building at 217 Broadway. A building manager, Patricia Greco, said she didn’t know the flag was in violation of the code and that it will be replaced soon.

“Old Glory,” with its 50 stars embedded in a field of blue and 13 stripes of red and white, is a symbol of freedom for many Americans. In the aftermath the September 11 attacks, the country’s existing stock of flags sold out in three days, the curator of a large flag collection in Nevada, James Ferrigan III, said. “It’s ubiquitous in our culture,” Mr. Ferrigan said. “It’s an American phenomena.”

Several flag experts, called vexillogists, said America has an exceptional attachment to its flag, and consequently Americans are especially concerned with flag procedure. Across the country, Boy Scouts and servicemen, among others, go through the strict procedure of unfolding and hoisting the flag at sunrise every day.

Unlike other countries that have been unified by a ceremonial monarch, or common religion or race, America’s population has long been associated with a more abstract idea of what it is to be an American, the director of the Flag Research Center in Massachusetts, Whitney Smith, said.

“Having a tattered flag or flag that has been treated in some way that is considered disrespectful is, in a sense, insulting all Americans,” said Mr. Smith, a former political science professor.

The code calls the American flag a “living” object and stipulates that it should be treated accordingly. Among the 11 provisions for respecting the flag are that it should never be hoisted upside down “except as a signal of dire distress,” and that it should never touch the ground or water. On its demise, “when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display,” is should be destroyed with dignity, preferably by burning, according to the code.

“You may own a flag, but the concept belongs to everyone,” Mr. Ferrigan said. He said he began a lifelong love for flags as an 8-year-old in Bethlehem, Pa. His father brought home a pile of old signal flags from a ship that was being scrapped and gave them to Mr. Ferrigan, who became fascinated by the idea that groups of people, from communities to nations, pick an image “that is paramount to everything else to symbolize themselves,” he said.

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist at Claremont Graduate School, called flags one of the greatest inventions of the last 2,000 years because they allowed people of different kinship to band together and act as a unit.

“These symbols really are quite powerful,” he said, adding that in today’s social fabric “the flag has become more like an outdoor statement of values.”

With his eye attuned to violations, Mr. Schweiger said he knocks on doors all the time, even offering to buy new flags for those reluctant to replace worn flags.

“People just become unconscious to it. They don’t pay attention,” he said. “It’s a shame that this happens all the time.”

Anyone with a flag in worn condition is asked to mail it to William H. Pouch Scout Camp, 1465 Manor Rd., Staten Island, N.Y., 10314, where it will be disposed of in compliance with the flag code.