Zozobra’s aftermath
Cleanup proceeds after scaled-down burning of Old Man Gloom that police say was uneventful.
The quiet Saturday morning at Fort Marcy park belied the nuttiness there the night before.
The City Different became the City Bizarre on Friday night with the 97th Zozobra celebration. A 55-foot-high marionette called Zozobra, or Old Man Gloom, caught fire as it always does and burned in front of about 15,500 cheering fans. The annual ritual is supposed to burn away the worries, despair, defeats and disappointments of the past year.
By 7:40 a.m. Saturday, volunteers and city workers had removed and washed away hundreds of pounds of trash and soot. Parks department and streets department employees continued their labor, and the ballfield’s dirt infield and grass outfield looked game ready.
“They did an amazing job,” said Kit Herrod, who recently moved to Santa Fe from Seattle. She kept an eye on her two dogs, both busy sniffing the park grass. “Kudos to whoever organized the whole thing.”
Herrod went on about the televised Zozobra spectacle and even more about the cleanup. “It’s remarkable,” she said. She was less impressed with the obedience of her dogs, both of which ignored her commands and went about their field inspections. “C’mon girls, let’s go,” she said to them.
Lt. Sean Strahon of the Santa Fe Police Department said in a text message early Saturday that Zozobra “went great.” Strahon said one intoxicated person was asked to leave and friends took that person home.
“No arrests or fights,” Strahon said. “No issues with traffic before or after the event.”
Event organizer Ray Sandoval said ticket scans and gate clicks indicated 15,479 people attended. “I think it went really well,” he said. He limited attendance to a quarter of what it usually is because of the coronavirus pandemic. He said all of the 16,000 anti-bacterial wipes set out were used and most people did a good job of spreading out.
The Public Service Company of New Mexico and Avangrid of Connecticut, utility companies that have proposed to merge in New Mexico, donated $100,000 to make up for the lost ticket revenue.
A crew of city street workers gave special care Saturday morning to the area black with soot that had been occupied by the marionette-turned-heap-ofashes.
They scooped Zozobra’s remains and many scraps of paper to a bulldozer, which dispatched the stuff into a dump truck. The air still smelled of smoke.
Joe LeDoux, equipment manager for the city streets department, said the pile still smoldered when he arrived at 6:15 a.m. LeDoux said he’s worked this shift
before on the morning after Zozobra, and it’s “pretty much the same every year.” Soon two employees used blowers to push remaining scraps into a disposable heap.
Equipment such as speakers and lighting still had to be removed, as did portable toilets and white tents. Three new Kia cars sat parked on the grass, having been displayed the night before by a dealership.
Parks workers Andres Lopez and Vincent Jaramillo disassembled a platform in deep right-center field. They agreed the cleanup had been successful.
“Yeah, the volunteers did a good job,” Lopez said.
Among the volunteers were representatives of Keep Santa Fe Beautiful and Kiwanis International Club of Santa Fe. Kiwanis uses the event as a fundraiser for its charities.
Nathan Saiz, acting parks department operations manager, drove a white pickup around the area. “It’s a nice, calm morning,” Saiz said. He said eight parks employees worked the event and eight worked on cleanup the morning after.
Carol Branch, executive director of Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, said organizers, volunteers and the city made a more concerted effort at cleanup beginning in 2019. Littering had been a problem before, she said, and she particularly remembered grotesque, partially eaten, rain-soaked turkey legs littering the area.
Branch, who is also the city’s environmental services program manager, said the city strives to hand out more trash bags to spectators, set up litter disposal banners and make more anti-littering announcements during the event, among other things.
“We’re cleaning up the whole time,” Branch said before the event. “Pretty much when we leave, the field is spotless.”
The only thing littering the ballfield later Saturday was the crows.