AIDS Memorial

In the 1980s and early 1990s, New York City was the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. In 1986, public health officials estimated that over half of all gay men and three-fifths of all intravenous drug users living in the city were infected with HIV (the human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that leads to AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). By the end of the following year, one in sixty-one New York City women giving birth had the virus. By the end of the 1980s, AIDS had become the leading cause of death among men ages twenty-five to forty-four and Black women ages fifteen to forty-four living in the city.

In 1994, Lawrence Swehla, a New York City schoolteacher, conceived the idea of a permanent and public outdoor AIDS memorial. He and the AIDS Monument Committee, a non-profit group, held public meetings, solicited donations, scouted potential sites, and navigated bureaucratic red tape. In 2005, the Hudson River Park Trust, the organization that manages Hudson River Park, offered a site for the proposed monument. The following year, the committee received a fundraising shot-in-the-arm when Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, allocated $40,000 for the project. It was a considerable amount of money considering that the committee had raised just over $26,000 since the mid-1990s and that it estimated the monument to cost roughly $175,000. In the end, the cost of the memorial was about $88,000. 

Before the memorial’s dedication, its design came under intense criticism from some groups in the city’s LGBTQ+ community. In 2006, the Community Board 2 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Committee expressed its dissatisfaction with the project. Its chairperson, Steve Ashkinazy, echoed the sentiments of the organization’s members when he called the memorial’s design insignificant and argued that it did not fulfill many people’s expectations for the project. Ashkinazy hoped that the design selection process would be reopened and that a more meaningful memorial would come out of it. Swehla and the AIDS Monument Committee, however, forged ahead with the already-settled-upon design. 

On the cold and rainy afternoon of Sunday, November 30, 2008, a day before the twentieth anniversary of World AIDS Day, Swehla and other members of the AIDS Monument Committee unveiled the memorial during a brief public ceremony. Located between Pier 46 and Pier 51, near the end of Bank Street, in Hudson River Park, it consists of a forty-two-foot-long, eighteen-inch-tall, twelve-inch-thick curved bench made of Canadian Black granite. Etched into the granite are lyrics from a traditional Finnish folk song: “I can sail without wind, I can row without oars. But I cannot part from my friend without tears.” The memorial pays tribute to those who have died from the disease, the healthcare professionals who have cared for HIV/AIDS patients, and the educators and medical researchers whose work will one day help eradicate the disease. Sitting on a beautifully landscaped grassy knoll overlooking the former site of Pier 48, it functions as a place of quiet reflection, where visitors can mourn and remember those lost to the disease.  

"AIDS Memorial." Hudson River Park. Hudson River Park Friends & Hudson River Park Trust. Web. 8 December 2020 <https://hudsonriverpark.org/activities/aids-memorial/>.

Anderson, Lincoln. "AIDS Memorial's ship finally comes in at Bank St." amNY, November 25, 2008 <https://www.amny.com/news/aids-memorials-ship-finally-comes-in-at-bank-st/>.

Dominus, Susan. "A Quiet Place to Remember Lost Friends." New York Times, November 30, 2008 <https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/nyregion/01bigcity.html>.

Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.

Kwon, Janet. "AIDS memorial gets funds, but design gets criticized." amNY, August 1, 2006 <https://www.amny.com/news/aids-memorial-gets-funds-but-design-gets-criticized/>.