A SHRINE WORTH SAVING.

Byline: PHAEDRA HAYWOOD

City will document makeshift memorial before cleanup;

other locations considered

By Phaedra Haywood

The New Mexican 

City of Santa Fe officials said Wednesday that a makeshift shrine created in Cathedral Park to memorialize four youths killed in a car accident June 28 will be documented through photos and videos and then taken down.

According to City Constituent Services liaison Sevastian Gurule, documentation of the shrine will take place today between 1 and 3 p.m., and will include video and still images of the shrine and interviews with the teens who helped create it.

Cleanup of the shrine will probably begin Saturday, Gurule said. Some of the teenagers and John Simmons, the father of one of the youths who died, have volunteered to help. Several had already begun cleaning the shrine Wednesday morning in advance of their meeting with city officials.

The teens who created the shrine -- a collection of photographs, flowers and other memorabilia placed at the foot of a bronze monument in the center of the park -- had wanted the memorial to stay in place until 16-year-old Avree Koffman, the sole survivor of the crash, is released from the hospital.

But Gurule said the city had received complaints from citizens -- including some who helped raise money to create the monument memorializing Spanish colonists who settled Santa Fe -- that the shrine had gotten out of hand and needed to be cleaned up.

In addition to placing flowers and cards on the statue, teens had written messages, some in permanent marker, on the flagstone base of the monument and surrounding concrete seating.

City Councilor Carmichael Dominguez told teens during a meeting at the park Wednesday afternoon that they may continue to place photos, flowers and notes at the foot of the monument through Sunday. Other items -- such as the beads, clothing and cigarette packs that are currently part of the shrine -- will not be allowed to remain, he said.

"We know what you are going through," said City Councilor Ron Trujillo, who also attended Wednesday's meeting. "But by city code, some of this could be considered vandalism."

Dominguez told the youth he is committed to facilitating the creation of a permanent memorial for all Santa Fe youth who have died over the years, but that it probably will not be built at Cathedral Park.

Warehouse 21 has been suggested as a potential site for a permanent memorial, and teens and officials will meet there at noon Saturday to discuss that possibility.

In the meantime, Patti Quintana, who manages a slice of property connected to Cathedral Park for Drury Hotels -- the company that now owns the old St. Vincent Hospital building -- has offered to allow the teens to construct a temporary shrine on Drury-owned land on the eastern edge of the park.

"It just seems like the quickest solution to their problems," Quintana said. She has also offered access to cinder blocks and plywood lying around the old hospital building to construct a makeshift altar for placement of memorial items, and use of two park benches to place beside it.

Quintana said her firm had lots of problems with fights and gang activity over the winter. But since school let out, youth congregating in the park have been "really respectful" of the park and the tenants of the adjacent buildings she manages. "We haven't had a single incident here since Memorial Day, which is huge, because we used to have three or four per week," she said.

Quintana said she's agreed to host the temporary memorial at least until September, at which point the issue would be revisited.

Gurule said he was amazed at how receptive the teens were to the ideas broached during Wednesday's meeting, which included Bernabe Romero, the architect who designed the statue -- created by Donna Quasthoff -- around which the shrine was built.

After the meeting, 17-year-old Shaan Minhas thanked the officials for coming to the park and shook their hands, but said later he was disappointed that Koffman would never get to see the memorial and "feel the energy that's been coming from this place."

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or [e-mail].