New monument in West Hollywood will honor lives lost to AIDS

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December is AIDS/HIV Awareness Month and this year the city of West Hollywood is honoring the lives lost by breaking ground on a project in West Hollywood Park that has been in the works since 2012. 

Members of West Hollywood’s City Council joined representatives from the Foundation of AIDS Monument to announce the commencement of the construction of STORIES: The AIDS Monument, which will memorialize 32 million lives lost worldwide. This monument, created by artist Daniel Tobin, will represent the rich history of Los Angeles where many of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS lived out their final days in support of their community.

Tobin is a co-founder and creative director of Urban Art Projects, which creates public art programs that humanize cities by embedding creativity into local communities. 

The motto for the monument is posted on the website announcing the project. 

“The AIDS Monument:

REMEMBERS those we lost, those who survived, the protests and vigils, the caregivers.

CELEBRATES those who step up when others step away.

EDUCATES future generations through lessons learned.”

The monument will feature a plaza with a donor wall, vertical bronze ‘traces’ with narrative text, integrated lighting resembling a candlelight vigil and a podium facing North San Vicente Blvd.

World AIDS Day has been commemorated on December 1st since the World Health Organization declared it an international day for global health in 1988 to honor the lives lost to HIV/AIDS. 

The Foundation for the AIDS monument aims to chronicle the epidemic to be preserved for younger generations to learn the history and memorialize the voices that arose during this time. 

The HIV/AIDS epidemic particularly affected people in Hollywood during the onset of the epidemic in the 1980s. The epidemic caused a devastatingly high number of deaths in the city. The city then became one of the first government entities to provide social service grants to local AIDS and HIV organizations. 

In 1985, the city sponsored one of the first awareness campaigns in the country, nationally and globally becoming a model city for the response to the epidemic. 

Earlier this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the theme for World AIDS Day, "Collective Action: Sustain and Accelerate HIV Progress."

The City of West Hollywood continues to strive to become a HIV Zero city with its current implementation of HIV Zero Initiative. The initiative embraces a vision to “Get to Zero” on four fronts: zero new infections, zero progression of HIV to AIDS, zero discrimination and zero stigma.

Along with the initiative and the new AIDS monument, the city also provides ongoing support and programming through events for World AIDS Day and the annual AIDS Memorial Walk in partnership with the Alliance for Housing and Healing. 

For more information, please visit www.weho.org/services/human-services/hiv-aids-resources.