From Wikipedia

Holy Land USA was an 18-acre (73,000 m2) park in Waterbury, CT representing a miniature Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It was one of Connecticut’s biggest tourist attractions in the 1960s and 1970s with 50,000 visitors per year. Holy Land USA was built in the 1950s by local attorney John Baptist Greco. The 50' cross was designed and built by Frank Veto Lyman. This steel cross was once lit up purple for Lent and red for the Christmas season. Holy Land USA closed in 1984 and the plaster, wire caves and structures are now in miserable shape. Some local residents wish to see the place restored while others want it razed and turned into a park.

On November 20, 2002, Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart spoofed Holy Land in a segment with correspondent Stephen Colbert satirically comparing the park to Israel.

The cross was one of Waterbury’s most beloved and prominent landmarks. Illuminated at night, it was a beacon seen from many homes and thousands of motorists passing daily on highways below. Pilots even used it for orientation.[15]

In April 2008, workmen took down the former cross, which had become unstable from years of weathering and repeated attacks by vandals. The Religious Teachers Filippini, an order of nuns that owns the property, paid $250,000 to have it replaced with a cross that is a little shorter, a bit thinner, but more durable. In addition, the cross is not illuminated like the previous ones, instead it is lit by surrounding flood lights.

On June 18, 2008 the new 50-foot (15 m) cross was blessed and rededicated by Archbishop Henry J. Mansell. The new cross is actually the third giant cross to grace the site. The original was 32 feet (9.8 m) tall and was erected in 1956. The cross was dedicated to world peace in a ceremony attended by 1,200 people in November of that year. It was the beginning of Holy Land.

That original cross was replaced in 1968, by a cross of steel girders and plastic that housed fluorescent lights that reached 56 feet (17 m) into the sky. That cross was dedicated to peace and also to the slain John and Robert Kennedy.

Today, much of what was Holy Land is in ruins. Broken pavement lines the road winding through the property. Yellow tape blocks access to displays, many of which have been smashed by vandals