November 15, 2002
Two "spontaneous shrines in Buffalo
by Lydia Fish
with photographs, and fieldwork on the Sloan shrine, by Nancy Piatkowski
On the night of Sunday, 30 October, Buffalo Police Officers James A. Shields and Kim Monteforte were pursuing two robbery suspects southward on Delaware Avenue when Shields swerved to avoid hitting the car in front of himand the patrol car crashed into a tree at the corner of Bryant and Delaware. Shields was pronounced dead on arrival at ECMC and Monteforte suffered a broken hip. By the time I passed the tree on my way to work the next morning an informal memorial—what folklorist Jack Santino has called a spontaneous shrine—had begun to grow up around the tree. Police officers had arranged seven American flags, one for each year Shields had served on the force, around the base of the tree and placed lighted candles and flowers within the circle.
Between that morning and the day of his funeral, on Tuesday, 5 November, the shrine continued to grow as family, friends and colleagues came to pay their respects and leave mementoes. His family tied a blue ribbon around the tree and left pictures, including one of Shield’s father, who was a member of the Cheektowaga police department. The badly scarred tree was alsodecorated with Buffalo Police, Fire Department, Motorcycle Police and Transit Police badges, messages and prayers, a rosary, two small images of angels, flowers, a cross, a little statue of a policeman and, finally, a program from his funeral service at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Depew. The pictures were carefully enclosed in plastic holders, as were printouts of two web pages: the memorial page from the Buffalo Police Department website and an anonymous poem which is also often used in reference to departed soldiers, “The Final Inspection.”
On the ground around the base of the tree visitors left, cards, a little pumpkin, a policeman doll tied to one of theflags, a license plate, coffee and a doughnut from Tim Horton’s, real and artificial flowers. Candles were added every day; the night of Shield’s funeral there were at least twenty five. Patricia Abbatoy, who does the police blotter at the D-district police station where Shields worked and whom I met at the shrine, told me that the policemen in passing cruisers tended the candles, emptying out the water and relighting them after the frequent rains that week. I visited the shrine at least once a day that week and it was never deserted.
There was a second shrine to a policeman in the area that week. On Tuesday, 29 October, Detective Wasyl Potienko of Cheektowaga’s Juvenile Unit died after his unmarked police car was hit by a recycling truck and spun into the path of an oncoming pickup truck near the corner of Broadway and Alexander, in the Village of Sloan. It is less elaborate than the Delaware Avenue shrine, mostly silk and plastic flowers and flags, arranged around the bottom or tied to a telephone pole and a nearby street sign. There were afew messages, a rosary fastened to a flag, and a finger rosary and a miniature statue of the Infant of Prague tied to the telephone pole. An elementary school student and her mother from the school where Potiemko’s wife teaches fastened a bouquet of silk roses to the street sign and students from Cheektowaga Central High School left a wreath. On 5 November Nancy Piatkowski talked to owner of the garage across the street from the shrine, who assured her that he and the local policemen kept a careful eye on it.
Informal shrines at the site of a fatal accident are a familiar sight on American, European, and Australian highways. There was a cross at the roadside on the way to the Buffalo Airport for many years and there is a small shrine on Main Street in Williamsville. The spontaneous shrines that sprang up all overNew York City after 11 September 2001 were shown on television around the world , as were the railings at Kensington Palace after the death of Princess Diana, the crosses on the hill behind Columbine High School, and “The Fence” in Oklahoma City. (click here Sylvia Grider's article on these shrines). Bruce Jackson had a photograph exhibit of News York City street and park shrines, "Missing Persons," at UB's Center for the Arts in October 2001. They may spring up close to the scene of a tragedy or, like the shrines that were created at American embassies and other facilities abroad, express sympathy for an event on the other side of the world. Some are transitory, others, like the shrines at the graves of Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley have endured for years. A few days ago, on the twentieth anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the foot of the Wall was heaped with floral tributes and mementoes.
The monument makers spend years deciding on their designs and locations, but ordinary people feeling profound emotion have no time for that. Somehow, they know what to do.