ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 22, 1996 TAG: 9608220002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROSE DEWOLF KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
We almost take it for granted now. After a life is cut short by violence, crime or sometimes, a terrible accident, the site of the death is turned into a kind of shrine.
Friends and strangers pay tribute to the victim by leaving flowers, personal notes, small gifts, maybe a hand-lettered sign announcing sorrow.
Other people stop to look, to read the messages, to reflect.
We are seeing a new American tradition develop, says C. Allen Haney, professor of sociology at the University of Houston who is writing a book about the phenomenon. That these memorials spring up at the site of the tragedy, he says, ``acknowledges a loss of civility as well as loss of life. We are mourning for what has happened to our society.''
Recent ``shrines'' are only too easy to recall.
Earlier this month, Nicholas Morris, 17, was entering a bank in the Deptford Mall in Deptford, N.J., to cash a check, when he was struck by bullets fired during an attempted robbery. The next day, flowers, cards and a football (he'd been on Glassboro High's squad) appeared only steps away from where he fell.
And when, days later, 14-year-old Maureen Lavin, who had been shopping at the mall, died of wounds suffered in the same shootout, a second informal shrine appeared nearby for her.
The previous week, an impromptu memorial appeared in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park after a pipe bomb killed Alice Hawthorne, 44, and contributed to the death by heart attack of Turkish journalist Melith Uzunyal, 40.
Under signs bearing their names, people placed flags from around the world and pictures from the Olympics. Some brought flowers. One person arranged candle-filled cups in the shape of a peace sign. At night, the candles were lit. During the day, people filled the cups with money.
``These are public deaths and so people feel a need to respond in a public way,'' said the Rev. Wanda Jenkins, director of the grief assistance program at the Christian Street YMCA in Philadelphia. ``Such a death is not just the family's pain to bear. The community shares the pain. And these shrines give members of the community an opportunity to say, `This is what we're feeling.'''
``People see this senseless violence and feel powerless,'' said the Rev. Rick Malloy of Holy Name Roman Catholic Church in Camden, N.J. ``They don't want to just shut it off and click into the next rerun of `Gilligan's Island.' They want to say, `We give a damn.' And it would too exhausting for the family if all these people called personally on them.'' These scene-of-tragedy memorials have appeared with increasing frequency over the past three years.
It's possible this practice is an outgrowth of other related customs. Haney cites the example of leaving personal gifts at the Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C. In 1982, when workers prepared to pour the foundation for the wall that was to be inscribed with the names of the Vietnam War dead, someone asked if he could put a soldier's Purple Heart in the concrete. Mementos have been left there ever since - letters, jewelry, record albums, tapes, beer cans. The National Park Service collects the items twice a day, to catalog and pack away.
Memorials at the sites of deaths of gang members have appeared in New York City for decades and similar memorials began showing up in Philadelphia and Camden in the late '80s. ``When a gang member is killed, often friends will paint his name and the dates he was born and died on the back of their cars,'' said Jenkins. ``It is if they are saying to mainstream America, `There are people who care about this death.'''
Malloy believes painted memorials that can be seen in many Hispanic neighborhoods are related to a Latin American tradition of erecting a memorial at the site of a death.
According to Jenkins, it could be this new American tradition started simply because one person placed a flower at a death scene, and others added to it.
However it started, she said, it's a symbol of the community coming together. There seems to be unspoken agreement that the shrine will be untouched for a while, and then silent assent that it's time to take it down.
``There are no rules for these memorials,'' said Haney. ``Everyone knows to be quiet in church, to file past a casket. But whatever you feel at a spontaneous shrine is OK. Some visit once. Some come back again and again. Some bring a camera. Some cross themselves. And no one is excluded. You don't have to know the victim. You don't have to know the family.''
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KRT. On July 30, David Wagie of Coral Spring, Fla.,by CNBplaced a floral wreath at Centennial Park in Atlanta in honor of the
victims of the pipe bombing during the Olympics. color.