Another Kind of Pilgrimage : Religion: A window that some say held the Virgin Mary’s image is removed. Outstretched hands smear the outline as the glass is taken to a truck.

Fearing that fervent pilgrims would get out of control, an Oxnard landlord ordered glaziers on Wednesday to replace a dirty kitchen window that some said bore the image of the Virgin Mary.

Wednesday afternoon, two glaziers in an unmarked van drove up to the Perkins Road apartment where hundreds of the devout and the curious have been singing, praying and lighting candles for two days beneath a Madonna-shaped spray of dirt on the kitchen window.

The two removed the pane, returned it to their Oxnard shop and later replaced it with new, clean glass.

The once-sharp image on the old glass had been all but obliterated by worshipers, who smeared it with outstretched hands as one glazier carried it to the truck. Now it sits in storage, awaiting a new home.

“We basically removed the window for public safety,” said Iris Wilson, property manager of the apartment building for William R. Derrick & Associates. “We thought it was in everyone’s best interest.”

Crowds had trampled the front yard and strewn a makeshift altar with flowers and lighted candles since Monday, when apartment tenant Marty Vaca first told friends that she spotted the Virgin’s image on the dirty glass.

Tuesday night, two people were slightly injured when someone fired a gun into the crowd, police said. Luis Valencia, 21, was shot in the foot, and his 19-year-old wife, Claudia Valencia, was shot in the ankle, police said.

“We just didn’t want to put anyone else at risk” by leaving the glass in place, Wilson said.

Donny Ashbaugh, a worker for Gold Coast Glass, said about 75 to 100 people were waiting inside and outside the apartment when he and his boss, glazier Bill Rizzie, approached.

“Everything got quiet,” Ashbaugh said. “It was a moment of quiet when we pulled out the window.”

As Rizzie carried the glass to the truck, he was surrounded by worshipers, some kneeling and grabbing his legs, Ashbaugh said.

“When we went out there, it was just to remove a window, but the outcome of everything was surreal,” Ashbaugh said. “My boss was holding it, and they were touching him and touching the window. . . . They kinda messed it up a little bit ‘cause they kept touching it with their hands.”

The two took it to their shop, where it was being stored Wednesday night, only an outline of a head still visible amid dozens of dusty finger smears. At least one church has expressed interest in acquiring the glass, Ashbaugh said.

Technically speaking, the image was just rain-blown dirt left on the glass by a wet screen after wind peeled the screen away, Ashbaugh said.

“But religion’s one thing, my opinion’s another,” he said. “I believe in God myself--I’m not doubting it myself. It’s a surprising thing.”

Even after the begrimed glass was removed from the two-pane window frame, traffic clogged the street and dozens of people stared raptly at the remaining, blank pane.

Some took photos of the empty window, some took photos of other people’s photos of the original window, and some simply took away the photos of the Virgin’s silhouette that had been loaned to them by Marty Vaca, the apartment’s tenant.

“I was a little bit relieved, but also a little bit sad” when the glass was replaced, Vaca said.

While it was there, worshipers were singing and praying outside her apartment until midnight, she said, adding, “now maybe we’ll get a little peace and quiet.”