Holy Land USA
The tires had been humming all day between the lyrics of The Doors, the driver’s seat conforming to my stiff muscles as we wove between blues and reds, blacks and silvers, and taupe SUVs on the interstate. “When I was a little kid, Morrison scared me; his voice was so deep it sounded evil,” I noted, between slapping my fingers on the steering wheel. “His voice does sound almost sinister,” Whitey agreed, summarizing my childhood memories of “People are Strange” flawlessly. “Roadhouse Blues” was currently my “jam,” as it were, followed by “Peace Frog,” which mentioned the racial strife of New Haven in the ’60s. The pair of digitally remastered tracks seemed fitting given the state we were in, and our affinity for waking up in the morning and getting ourselves a beer.
Parading around the bends and bridges in the rush of anonymous go-getters, the farthest thing from my mind that day was seeking the abandoned, despite its usually incessant lingering; my cohort and I had planned on outdoor excursions with natural beauty on the docket, including Connecticut’s Castle Craig, and fire towers of the Catskills. Intentions were irrelevant, as the pavement slid between the contours of the hills of Waterbury, and glaring from above came an oddly familiar site: three white crosses.
“Hey, I know that! I’ve seen that before!” I declared.
Whitey seemed to scratch his head as I pointed out the statues overshadowing the city. I read about the Holy Land Theme Park before, capturing a screen shot for later investigation, though I had little notion of its exact location or accessibility. It was one of those “oh, cool, I should check that out” revelations on social media before forgetting its existence.
“Well let’s go; we’re here, aren’t we?” I couldn’t argue with his logic, and just like that, my foot shifted to the brake as we veered off the next exit ramp. There was some “microwave-and-make-you-wait” chain restaurant nearby — with local lacrosse teams and snowshoes hanging on the wall — where Whitey ordered a cocktail as a thank you for letting him use the restroom. I spent the last of my pocket jingle on a Mc-Something or other next door, while retracing my social media footprint and scavenging information.
Urban exploration isn’t always done on such a whim. In a perfect world it requires research, scouting, satellite imaging, and tips from location veterans. We didn’t have time for any of those luxuries. Margaritas rarely pour with a heavy hand at theme restaurants — especially in the early afternoon — so after my burger, Whitey doubled down on his order before we hit the road. I was craving a tall-boy myself at the time.
“Did you find it?”
I had memorized a handful of street names that would, in theory, get us to the outskirts of the abandoned Christian theme park. Forums warned it was what they called “the ‘hood,” but despite our agrarian background, we were still “New Yorkers” on a mission, and quite comfortable in an array of scenarios, so we put the car in gear and dove in.
The series of backstreets edged us farther and farther uphill, rapidly increasing elevation with every series of run-down Victorians and makeshift apartment complexes along the way. Questionable residents and “entrepreneurs” wandered out in traffic, nodding cooly as they assessed our needs, before looking past us and toward another passer-by.
When we arrived at the crest, I pulled my Civic to the side as we glanced at the stone pillars with white painted pyramids. A figure stood decapitated between the pillars, perhaps Saint Peter, wrapped in rosary beads and holding a cross. Herod’s Palace lay in the background with a miniature Jerusalem, complete with iron bars for a jail cell in a natural cave, and gravel paths with stairs leading up to a series of crosses.
The largest cross we arrived at bore metal fencing to prevent vandalism, and I stepped downward to snap a photo of Whitey in front of it. Beside it lay a similar toppled cross, graffitied and defeated by those who came before us. As I traced its perimeter I grew increasingly uncomfortable; my stomach sank and the natural “fight of flight” impulse overwhelmed me. This is a common response in such an abandoned location, where law enforcement has had enough of “artists” and other spectators, but I knew something just didn’t feel right.
“We gotta go!” I proclaimed, feeling sick to my stomach.
“You think your car will be sitting on cinder blocks?” Whitey mused. He was more practical than I, and I was inclined to laugh it off given the experience on the way up. Unfortunately, my gut was more persistent than usual. Evil leaves a trail behind it, which sometimes tends to loiter long enough to outweigh my logic. Subsequently, it’s with great solidarity that I share the following story which stands to explain such a solemn emotion at Holy Land USA.
Chloe Ottman was a sixteen-year-old resident of Waterbury, who made the fatal decision of accompanying nineteen-year-old Francisco Cruz on a walk to the abandoned theme park in July of 2010. They knew each other prior, and evidently she trusted him enough to escort him alone. Tragically, Cruz turned out to be a monster, raping Ottman beneath one of the crosses before strangling her to death, stabbing her in the neck when she resisted while punching him and breaking his glasses in the altercation. Prosecutor Patrick Griffin stated “they build state prisons for people like this; it’s where he belongs,” before Cruz was sentenced to 55 years, pleading guilty to murder on April 20th, 2011.
An open and kindhearted soul, Chloe Ottman was remembered as being trusting and welcoming to everyone she came in contact with. Despite such a beautiful disposition, it lead to her peril. I didn’t read all of the horrifying details until I was safe within my own four walls, over a hundred miles Southeast, trying to piece together the feelings I had with the experience of wandering the grounds. No matter how “sinister” Morrison’s voice appeared, I couldn’t wrap my head around the articles that read like a horror novel. Baffled by the circumstances, every time I swallowed it felt like there was a lump in my throat. I believed I had no business even being there in the first place; I hadn’t earned the right to explore such a battlefield, where I hadn’t been invested in the warrior who gave one final fight for freedom before succumbing to one of the worst enemies of humanity. Apparently the community felt the same, and took it upon themselves to topple the cross where she spent the last moments of her time on Earth, destroying the final view she had as she prayed for salvation from terror.
Such a catastrophic ending was certainly not the purpose of Holy Land USA, and Ottman was not their intended martyr. When the park opened in 1955, its creator John Baptist Greco, a local attorney, envisioned a place for people to “sit and be peaceful,” regardless of race, creed, or color. His replication of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and the Garden of Eden, attracted an average of 40,000 visitors annually between the ’60s and ‘70s.
Greco’s success encouraged him to expand the park in 1984, which required it to close for repairs and renovations. Unfortunately he passed away two years later, when the property was left to the Pontifical Institute of the Religious Teachers Filippini. While various attempts were made to restore the park, including by the Boy Scouts in 1997, and the Knights of Columbus in 2000, the “Filippini Sisters” were allegedly reluctant to receive major help due to liability concerns. By 2002, despite Holy Land’s status, the Waterbury Region Convention and Visitor’s Bureau received inquiries upward of 150 calls per year.
The park was purchased in June of 2013 for $350,000 by Mayor Neil O’Leary and Fred Blasius, a local car dealer, who illuminated a new cross that December, and cleared some of the overgrown land on the property. The revitalization of such a parcel is crucial for the development of the surrounding neighborhoods, and subsequently the city of Waterbury as a whole. As is common in abandoned properties of this magnitude, the community is invested in its future, though I can imagine no greater apprehension in the region. While the arrest and conviction of Cruz may bring closure to the case of Chloe Ottman, and the overhaul of the property may mitigate future atrocities, the site of Holy Land USA remains a tragic oddity of both past and present.
Though the events did not pertain to racial strife, and they took place 18 miles from the town of New Haven, there is still “blood on the streets” in Connecticut today. Hope is spared for the future of the property, however, as interest has piqued over the course of its operation. While a shadow hangs over its legacy and eclipses Waterbury at sunset, a path is left undetermined, and optimistic re-purposing remains within the grasp of the city. Religious leaders utilized the location for Easter services during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, live streaming the event as a “Mountaintop Mass.” Father James Sullivan of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception noted that the event marked a life which was “so different than any other one that we’ve experienced in the past.”
Staggering down toward the car, I glanced around the high grass and hot sun, taking in the overwhelming scene of abandoned faith, and I swore to pick up the slack; not just for Ottman, but for every family residing in the shadow of these hills, who look up every night at Greco’s tribute. Perhaps if so many people of different denominations could come together during a pandemic, and adapt to this ever-changing world, aspirations may not be out of reach for this community.
We were meant to be loved; we were meant to be cherished and celebrated. We were meant to seek out the opportunity to “sit and be peaceful,” even when evil interferes with the best laid plans. With a quarter turn I fired up the Civic with Morrison’s haunting revelation: “the future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” In this moment in time, however, I was blessed, and I had the privilege of going home.
