Trinity Site memorial replica taken in ‘heist’

By Tripp Stelnicki | tstelnicki@sfnewmexican.com
Jun 27, 2018

Adam Horowitz, a documentary filmmaker, removed a lightweight replica of the Trinity Site memorial from outside the Santa Fe Community Convention Center on Wednesday. Courtesy Matthew Chase-Daniel

Four men in white lab coats appeared Wednesday on West Marcy Street.

Their mission: Steal the Trinity Site memorial, the obelisk that marks where the first nuclear bomb was tested in 1945 in Southern New Mexico.

Not the real memorial. Rather, a Styrofoam replica set outside the Santa Fe Community Convention Center by Tourism Santa Fe earlier this month.

And they didn’t really steal it.

It was an appropriately fake heist for a fake memorial.

A video shared with The New Mexican shows the “schemers” hastily loading the 12-foot-tall prop onto the back of a dingy pickup and driving off — something the new owner of the obelisk said he was invited to do by the city.

“Stealing the Trinity Site monument,” Instagram user tiocreamy captioned a photo of the monument on the truck. “Cops on the way!”

It brought to a close the strange episode of what some are calling an “atomic summer” of nuclear-themed events, shows and exhibitions.

The replica had drawn the ire of a few residents who voiced their displeasure on social media.

Randy Randall, executive director of Tourism Santa Fe, recently said he simply thought the prop from a recent television documentary series was interesting.

But his view was not shared by all. The leader of a nuclear watchdog group even called on community members to protest the placement of a nuclear-themed novelty item in downtown Santa Fe at the City Council’s Wednesday night meeting.

“It’s not every city that can proudly sport a styrofoam replica of the basalt monument at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, where the Nagasaki bomb prototype was exploded, with terrible consequences for people downwind,” Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group wrote in an email. “Santa Fe’s motto is the ‘City Different,’ however. So go figure.”

The protest was made unnecessary, however, after the replica disappeared — although a few people did appear before councilors to thank them for its disappearance and express the view that it had been inappropriate.

Adam Horowitz, a documentary filmmaker who has focused on nuclear history, said he told Randall he wanted the prop and would put it to use for both “artistic and educational purposes.” He came with a few friends — in costume — to claim it Wednesday.

“I wasn’t offended by it; I think it’s a useful thing,” said Horowitz, who directed Nuclear Savage, a well-received 2012 documentary about U.S. human radiation experiments on the Marshall Islands. “I think it’s a very valuable prop.”

Follow Tripp Stelnicki on Twitter @trippstelnicki.