Harvey Milk Plaza is a transit plaza at the Castro Muni Metro subway station commemorating

Harvey Milk Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in N ...

, in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Castro District The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood throug ...

, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

History

, the site's namesake, was a gay man who moved to

in 1972 and went on to become a beloved community activist. In 1977, Milk was elected to the

San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco. Government and politics The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a c ...

to represent District 5 (today, District 8), the district in which the plaza stands. Eleven months later, Milk was

assassinated Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...

in his office at

San Francisco City Hall San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomi ...

. In response, the community sought to recognize Milk by renaming the above-ground construction related to the Castro Muni Station, which opened in 1980, to be "Harvey Milk Plaza". In 1985, the plaza was officially dedicated to Harvey Milk. In attendance were Mayor

Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...

, Harvey Milk's successor to the SF Board of Supervisors,

Harry Britt Harry Britt (June 8, 1938 – June 24, 2020) was an American political activist and politician in San Francisco. Britt was involved during the late-1960s in the civil rights movement when he was a Methodist minister in Chicago. He was first appoin ...

, and President of the Board of Supervisors, John Molinari. In 1997, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Harvey Milk's election to the SF Board of Supervisors, a flagpole dedicated to Milk and the openly LGBTQ+ politicians who followed was added to the site. The flagpole flies the iconic

Rainbow Flag A rainbow flag is a multicolored flag consisting of the colors of the rainbow. The designs differ, but many of the colors are based on the spectral colors of the visible light spectrum. The LGBT flag introduced in 1978 is the most recognized u ...

LGBTQ+ 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, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a common culture and social ...

. In 2006, photographs from various stages of Milk's life were installed in the plaza and "blessed" by the

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI), also called Order of Perpetual Indulgence (OPI) is a charity, protest, and street performance organization that uses drag and religious imagery to call attention to sexual intolerance and satirizes issue ...

. The Castro Muni Station and Harvey Milk Plaza were designed by the architectural firm Reid & Tarics Associates. Howard Grant AIA is reported to have been in charge of design. In 2016, SFMTA announced plans for a large project to increase accessibility for the Castro Muni Station located under the plaza. The announcement led to the formation of The Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, a group of community members advocating for community involvement in the redesign effort. In 2017, the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza and the American Institute of Architects (AIASF) launched an international design competition to reimagine the plaza in response to decades of conversation around improving the site to better represent Harvey Milk, who by now had become an internationally recognized

LGBT civil rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , ...

icon. In 2017, designs were submitted to renovate the plaza. The winning submission belonged to architecture firm Perkins Eastman who went on to produce some initial design concepts for the project. In 2019, the Harvey Milk Plaza project secured a $1M grant from the State of California intended to “support construction of LGBTQ space in Harvey Milk Plaza.” In 2021, the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza announced the selection of

landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

firm SWA to serve as the new design lead for the project.

References

{{Coord, 37.762401, -122.435339, type:landmark_region:US-CA, display=title 1980 establishments in California Castro District, San Francisco Harvey Milk LGBT monuments and memorials in the United States Monuments and memorials in California Squares in San Francisco

History

See also

References