PASSAIC -- Onlookers wept Thursday at the pictures of the pope left in a pile on the ground amid torn flowers and debris.
They were among dozens who were saddened and enraged at the city's hasty removal Thursday morning of a wooden structure that shields a gnarled tree stump that appears to bear the image of the Virgin Mary ? a site that many in the community consider sacred.
Monday, the city's code enforcement inspectors notified caretakers Luis and Enelisa Irizarry that the shoddy wooden structure beneath Route 21 at the intersection of Hope Avenue was an imminent safety hazard. The Irizarrys were given 24 hours to remove the wooden structure but did not do so.
Department of Public Works Director Ted Evans did not return phone calls on Wednesday for comment.
The Irizarrys had been replacing the wood roof and walls after parts of the structure had fallen last week due to rain and wind. Thursday, a distraught Enelisa said she has no idea what happened. She shook her head in disbelief as tears streamed down her face, and she left the shrine without saying a word.
Erin Phalon, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, said that workers for the agency did not ask the DPW to take down the structure.
Numerous motorists stopped and stared in disbelief at the scattered debris, including two misty-eyed DPW workers, who sat in a truck and watched the onlookers from a distance.
"It's sacrilegious. This is a place of prayer," said Donna Miehe, a volunteer who was helping clean up the site.
Many Catholic Mexican immigrants were among the onlookers, and voiced their anger at Mayor Samuel Rivera, who they believe ordered the dismantling of the structure that guarded their nation's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The Virgin of Guadalupe is a mixed-race interpretation of the Virgin Mary who allegedly appeared to a poor peasant named Juan Diego in 1531 on the outskirts of Mexico City.
"What happen here? Was there a hurricane?" said Robert Ramirez, 70, in Spanish, as he passed by. When told the city took down the structure, he said with a wry smile, "So the government is the hurricane."
He said he was going to write a letter of protest to the mayor.
Rivera refused to comment about dismantling the shrine on Thursday. But his spokesman, Keith Furlong, confirmed the city ordered the shrine torn down and said city workers left the debris out of respect to the shrine's visitors.
"While we understand it's a very sensitive issue, we have to consider public safety," Furlong said.
Bursting into tears, Cecilia Velazquez, 48, a Passaic resident, shook a photo of her husband.
"This lady gave me a miracle and I am going to fight for her," she said in Spanish, explaining that her husband, an illegal immigrant who had lived in the United States for 19 years, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Doctors had given him six months to live. She left a picture of him at the shrine and now, a year later, after chemotherapy, he is still alive, which she attributes to the Virgin.
Annabel Hernandez, 33, a housekeeper, said between sobs that many illegal immigrants like herself come to pray to the Virgin for a sick loved one or for when they feel homesick.
"This place is a piece of Mexico, a piece of my religion," she said.
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