One of my favorite anecdotal bombs to drop on people after they’ve known me awhile is that I am a preacher’s kid. For part of my childhood, my dad was a reverend and my mom was a Sunday school teacher. For many years, I was a Good Christian Kid. I attended morning worship and evening youth group and went to Jesus camp twice a year. I built houses in Mexico, played guitar in the church band, and hate-ate potato salad at countless church potlucks.
During my teen years, my family and religious life did a 180, a fortuitous change I eventually came to appreciate. Religion and I parted ways when I was a teenager, and now the relationship is borderline contentious. I mention this only so you might get a sense of why exploring the abandoned Holy Land theme park gave my brain a few new wrinkles. Wandering through the crumbling, miniature village of Bethlehem, and climbing through the “court of the Jesuits” felt surreal and eerily familiar in a way that is only understandable by those who grew up thinking they’d burn in hell if they didn’t accept Jesus Christ of Nazareth into their hearts as their personal lord and savior.
Holy Land U.S.A was a religious theme park in Waterbury, Connecticut. It was operational from 1956 to 1984. Located on Pine Hill, the park stretched just over 17 acres and got about 40,000 visitors a year. The park was the work of the dubiously named attorney John Baptist Greco and volunteers from his organization, Companions of Christ. Greco, acting upon a PM from God, set out to construct a park that depicted the story of Jesus Christ according to the New Testament. Using repurposed materials such as chicken wire, cement, bathtubs, household appliances, fiberglass, etc, Greco built a miniature replica of Israel, specifically Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
Holy Land gates and recently boarded up chapel behind the fence. The chapel was used by the nuns who lived right outside the entrance.
“Bethlehem Village.” The structures stand only a few feet tall.
Visitors walked through the timeline of Jesus’ life from birth to death, or “cradle to the cross,” as Greco stated. Starting in Bethlehem, visitors strolled past biblical landmarks such as Herod’s Palace, the manger, the court of the Gentiles, the tower of Babel, and the three crosses of Calvary.
“Court of the Gentiles.”
Greco closed Holy Land in 1984 for renovations but it never reopened. When he passed away two years later, he left the park in the care of the Religious Sisters of Filippini, an order of nuns who continued to use the chapel but let the grounds fall into disrepair. Attempts were made to restore the property, including an effort by the Boy Scouts who repaired the Hollywood style sign in 1997, and the replacement of the iconic cross in 2008. A larger but ultimately futile restoration effort was made in 2001 when inmates from a nearby prison were brought in to clear the overgrown brush, but the project proved too expensive and the park was abandoned once again.
On June 20th, 2013, the mayor of Waterbury and a car dealer nicknamed Fritz bought Holy Land for $350,000 and stated plans to revitalize the park. But with all the failed renovation attempts of the past, I’m sure Waterbury residents aren’t getting their hopes up. Plus you know they’d secretly prefer a Six Flags over a bible lesson. (2017 update: people have been working to restore the property and hope to have have the part reopen sometime in 2018)
A few before/afters of Holy Land, c/o flickr.com/people/roadtripmemories/ and then some junk about my adventures.
Holy Land circa 1960′s (above) and 2013 (below)
Entrance to the park circa 1960′s (above) and the entrance in 2013 (below)
Statue of Christ in the entrance in the 60′s (above) and the headless/handless statue in 2013 (below)
Postcard for Holy Land in the 60′s.
Holy Land sign in 2013.
I explored Holy Land only a week after the 2013 purchase, of which I was unaware, but there were no signs of change or ownership. To gain legal entrance to the park, it was suggested to request permission from the nuns who lived right outside the property, but upon arrival we found the convent empty and a for sale sign in the window.
The park was overgrown to the point where many previously visible monuments were completely obscured in the brush. Plenty of structures had been removed/smashed/washed away in storms, but you can see how dense the foliage is and how some things might not be visible until the winter when the leaves are gone.
One thing that’s difficult to ascertain through photos is the scale of the structures. They’re SMALL. Like, teeny tiny, hobbit-sized small. The structure pictured below came up to just below my knee.
Newspaper reports about Holy Land claimed that exploring requests and trespassing had declined in the late 90s but were briefly renewed after a brutal murder took place in the park in 2010. On a lighter note, Holy Land U.S.A. was the setting for the Flaming Lip’s music video Unconsciously Screamin’ in 1991 and was visited by Stephen Colbert for the Daily Show in 2002.
One of two gardens, either Garden of Eden or Garden of Gethsemane.
At one point, my exploring buddy asked what the second garden we passed might have been, and I automatically replied, “probably the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus went with his disciples after the Last Supper before his crucifixion. He told his disciples to keep watch, then went and prayed he wouldn’t have to go through with being sacrificed, and his lazy disciples kept falling asleep instead of watching over him and Judas came and betrayed him and he was arrested by the Romans and…” and then I had one of those moments where I was dumbfounded at how much mental space my brain is wasting by harboring the details of a Sunday school lesson when I can’t even remember to move my car for street cleaning so I don’t get another goddamn parking ticket.
Jesus’ Tomb. This replica was set inside stone wall and was only about 1.5 x 3ft.
I can’t find adequate words to describe what it felt like to walk through the park ruins, having grown up deeply believing in the message Greco was so determined to share. Part of me was embarrassed that I once fully believed in fables that claimed someone could survive inside the belly of a whale or that a man could walk on water, but part of me wished I still believed those things. Despite how much I loathe religion and blame it for many of the world’s problems, I understand what a huge comfort it can be to people. The world feels a lot less like a hopeless clusterfuck when you think there’s some kind of magical eternal life waiting for you after this one. (Spoiler alert: there isn’t.)
More photos of Holy Land U.S.A can be seen on the Flickr set.
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