Brian Springfield (left), executive director of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, and Jim Chappell, who is on the group’s advisory committee, are working toward a reimagining of the area that they say would serve as a more fitting memorial.
A circular skylight - “The Oculus” - would illuminate a gallery in the Castro Station concourse where art exhibits would focus on social justice issues.
The intersection of Castro and Market streets where Harvey Milk Plaza sits is known globally as an iconic gathering place for LGBTQ celebrations, marches, protests, and memorials.
Brian Springfield (left), executive director of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, and Jim Chappell, who is on the group’s advisory committee, are working toward a reimagining of the area that they say would serve as a more fitting memorial.
It was cold and dark when more than 200 people clustered around the entrance to Muni’s Castro Station Monday night to mark the anniversary of the 1978 assassinations of pioneering gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and progressive Mayor George Moscone.
Some held flickering candles, others battery-powered replicas, reminiscent of the historic march that thousands of candle-bearing mourners made from that corner at Market and Castro streets to City Hall on the night Milk and Moscone died.
Soon after Milk’s death, some started referring to the corner, where the subway station was under construction, as Harvey Milk Plaza. It was officially dedicated as such in 1985 by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, Board of Supervisors President John Molinari and Milk’s replacement, Supervisor Harry Britt, with Milk’s name placed above the station entrance.
But many of Milk’s friends and admirers did not think the site, designed as a transit station rather than a memorial or gathering space, was a fitting tribute to the man once known as “The Mayor of Castro Street” and have long dreamed of building a better monument.
“People come from all over the world to Harvey Milk Plaza, and there’s no there there,” said Jim Chappell, former president and executive director of SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, and an advisor to the nonprofit Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, which is pushing a redesign plan. “San Francisco can and should do better.”
The proposed redesign of Harvey Milk Plaza would put a stage-like pedestal near the corner of Market and Castro streets.
Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza
Numerous challenges have frustrated previous overhaul efforts, including disagreements over proposed designs. The potential public and private costs combined are in the tens of millions.
But Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza — founded in 2016 in response to city plans to install an elevator at the station — has collected notable public and political support for its proposal, which would increase space for gatherings and add commemorative elements, and its plan has recently advanced significantly through The City’s bureaucracy.
The Board of Supervisors in October accepted a gift of $1.27 million worth of design documents from the organization for a plan that has already received environmental clearance from The City, a key step in the planning process.
The nonprofit group hopes to raise $12 million of private money, including $7.2 million for the construction of commemorative elements and $2.4 million for a three-year operating and programming fund, said executive director Brian Springfield.
The hope is that public entities will fund another $27.8 million in infrastructure costs and that the project can be coordinated with the ongoing elevator project and completed by 2028, Springfield said.
A circular skylight - “The Oculus” - would illuminate a gallery in the Castro Station concourse where art exhibits would focus on social justice issues.
Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk
U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, has asked for $5 million in the fiscal year 2024 federal budget for the redesign — a request supported by Mayor London Breed, state Assemblymembers Matt Haney and Phil Ting, and state Sen. Scott Wiener.
One congressional aide familiar with the federal budget process, however, said that Republican control of the House has thrown the fate of such district requests by Democratic legislators into doubt, though Republicans could allow a significantly reduced amount.
“In San Francisco, we take immense pride in being home to the iconic Harvey Milk: a trailblazing leader for freedom, equality and justice,” Pelosi said Monday in a statement. “By redesigning the plaza named for Harvey, our City will create a world-class civic space in the Castro neighborhood and improve transit rider access to the Castro Street Muni Station.”
“It has been my privilege to fight for federal funding in support of this transformative project that will revitalize the community and reimagine Harvey Milk Plaza for residents and visitors to enjoy in our beautiful City by the Bay,” Pelosi said.
The intersection of Castro and Market streets where Harvey Milk Plaza sits is known globally as an iconic gathering place for LGBTQ celebrations, marches, protests, and memorials.
Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza
Wiener, a staunch supporter of redesigning the plaza who helped secure $2.5 million for public and private planning efforts in recent years, expressed optimism about the project’s fate at Monday night’s vigil.
“How awesome will it be when we’re able to remember Harvey and celebrate Harvey on a, just a beautiful plaza that is worthy of his name?” he said. “I am so excited about those changes.”
Andrea Aiello, executive director of the community benefit district that serves the Castro/Upper Market area and co-chair of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, said merchants on Castro Street, where Milk ran a camera store, could benefit from a worthy attraction that draws visitors from around the world.
“The Castro has been suffering from low foot traffic for years,” she said.
As it is now, Aiello said, tourists looking for a memorial might wonder if they’ve gone to the right spot when they get to the plaza.
The festival runs from Wednesday, April 24 through Sunday, April 28
“It’s in the guidebooks, but there is nothing to see there,” she said.
Cleve Jones, a protege of Milk’s who went on to conceive the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said past proposals for the plaza “fell short” but that he loves the current plan.
“I just think it is absolutely perfect,” said Jones, now a labor union organizer. “There’s not one part of it I would alter in any way.”
Running along Market Street, the roughly triangular plaza is bounded by Castro Street at one end and residential Collingwood Street at the other. It is flanked by a condominium complex, some flats and the former Bank of America building, which has Milk’s words — “HOPE WILL NEVER BE SILENT” — in white neon above the door.
Advocates envision moving the existing stairs and escalator that serve Muni's Castro Station to create more space for gatherings.
Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza
An escalator and curving stairs descend to a lower patio outside the station entrance. A tall flagpole with a huge rainbow flag by artist Gilbert Baker, the international symbol’s creator, stands near Market Street.
Milk’s name is on the side of a pedestrian bridge. A plaque commemorating him is on a concrete pillar on the lower level, and photographs of him are displayed in and outside the station.
Redesign supporter Jeffrey Kwong, president of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, said he wanted the “plaza to be not just a plaque that people rush past, but an actual place for remembrance and reflection.”
Howard Grant, the retired architect who designed Castro station, opposes large-scale changes to the site and said a more expansive memorial for Milk could be accomplished at relatively low cost within the existing plaza. Grant said 402 people had signed a petition backing his view, but he said the redesign campaign was “a political juggernaut.”
“The momentum is clearly with them,” Grant said, arguing that the redesign plan would be overly destructive and disruptive. “Our only hope is they fall short in funding.”
The Department of Public Works is now preparing construction documents, which are expected to be completed by summer. Advocates hope future work can be coordinated with Castro Muni Station upgrades, which in September started with construction of a glass-enclosed elevator.
The City expects to finish the elevator project by 2026. Work includes regrading and repaving the walkway above the station concourse and the lower plaza, widening a portion of the sidewalk along Market Street to the same width, and installing new plantings, lighting, fencing, and a bench.
The proposed plaza redesign, developed with SWA, a landscape architecture and urban planning firm, calls for small lights to be embedded in the ground to evoke the candles carried in Milk’s memory. Near the corner, there would be a pedestal with the word “Act” on top, a place for addressing crowds as Milk once did.
In front of the new subway elevator, display panels — some digital — would show messages recalling moments in the Castro’s history and highlighting the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ rights.
More than 200 people gathered around the entrance to Muni’s Castro Station on Monday to mark the anniversary of the 1978 assassinations of pio…
The stairs and escalator into Castro Station would be moved to create more gathering space. On the roof of the station would be a circular skylight — The Oculus — which would afford a view of the rainbow flag from below and allow sunlight down into the station concourse, thus illuminating a gallery for art exhibits focusing on social justice issues and curated with input from community organizations.
Outside, at the quieter end of the plaza, would be The Grove, a circle bordered by trees around the word “Hope” embedded in the ground, a nod to Milk’s exhortations of hope, including his famous quote, “I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”
Jones said the site is undeniably historic and worthy of such investment.
“That area has been the site for gatherings where we’ve protested defeats, celebrated victories and mourned the passing of heroes,” he said. There was the peaceful march the night Milk and Moscone died, and the White Night Riot that erupted six months later when their killer, former Supervisor Dan White, was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter, leading to smashed windows at City Hall and burning police cars outside.
Then there was the victory of 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled gay marriage was a constitutional right. And the joyful Castro Street Fair celebrations that Milk started in 1974 and which have attracted tens of thousands of people a year.
“It would be difficult to find any other geographic location, other than perhaps the Stonewall Inn in New York, any other physical location that has played such an important role in the history of what we now call LGBTQ people.”
“This is going to really be quite beautiful,” he said. “Of course, we still have to raise more money, but I believe the community will step in and make sure this is a space that is worthy of its name.”
