AIDS Garden Chicago is a public 2.5 acre garden along

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...

. It serves to memorialize the

HIV epidemic The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...

in Chicago and honor those who live with the disease today, and is managed alongside the

Chicago Park District The Chicago Park District is one of the oldest and the largest park districts in the United States. As of 2016, there are over 600 parks included in the Chicago Park District as well as 27 beaches, several boat harbors, two botanic conservatories ...

History

From the late 1960s to the 1990s, the Belmont Rocks served as an informal gathering space for the

LGBT community The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay men, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a comm ...

in Chicago. During the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s, the Rocks also served as a memorial space for LGBT Chicagoans who died from the disease. The Rocks were removed in 2003 and replaced with a concrete retaining wall as part of a shoreline revetment project. After the site was demolished, plans were made to transform the space into a garden; however, the

2008 financial crisis 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

led to the cancellation of the initial project. Plans for AIDS Garden Chicago were relaunched in 2018, and the park's anchor piece, a 30-foot tall

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

sculpture titled 'Self-Portrait', was installed in late 2019. Although it was originally set to be complete in 2020, the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

shifted state funding away from the project, and it was delayed for a year. In June 2021, a groundbreaking ceremony was officially held at the site of the Belmont rocks. The park officially opened on June 2, 2022, and includes spaces for art installations, an educational walk which includes QR codes with information on how HIV has impacted the LGBT community in Chicago, a grove of gingko trees, and a perennial garden.

References

2022 establishments in Illinois LGBT culture in Chicago HIV/AIDS in the United States Parks in Chicago

External links

AIDS Garden Chicago
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