The Origins of the AIDS Monument
I’m Craig Dougherty, one of the founders of STORIES: The AIDS Monument. The idea for an AIDS monument came to me in 2010. Yes, that long ago. My husband Tony and I had already lost numerous friends and loved ones to the scourge of AIDS. We lost countless acquaintances, as well.
The AIDS crisis was a formative influence on my life as a young man — as it was for millions of others around the globe. But as I spoke with young people in 2010, and young gay men in particular, many knew little or nothing about the AIDS crisis and its importance in so many ways to the rights we’ve won over the past quarter century.
So, I set out to develop an AIDS memorial in West Hollywood. I wanted to ensure our experiences and the lessons we learned were shared with future generations and never forgotten. I drafted a position paper laying out a vision for this memorial, which we’d call a “monument” since the AIDS crisis was not over. In 2010, my friend Conor Gaughan and I met with West Hollywood City Council member John Duran, and Dallas Dishman, Arts and Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the City of West Hollywood. We had lunch at the former Café d’Etoile in West Hollywood and we spoke about the proposed AIDS Monument. John and Dallas were instantly on board.
Shortly thereafter, my friend Jason Kennedy immediately embraced the vision for the AIDS Monument. Jason offered an expanded scope for the project, with an added emphasis on the critical importance of education. Jason was part of a generation in their 30s who were fortunate to come of age after protease inhibitors had rendered the illness chronic, but no longer fatal —if access to healthcare and treatment was available.
Jason, Conor, and I, along with Hank Stratton (whom Jason brought on board) then met with another group who also wanted to see an AIDS memorial built in West Hollywood. Out of this group came Ruth Tittle who joined our efforts. Following her brother Loyd’s death from AIDS in 1993, Ruth owned and ran Capitol Drugs, a pharmacy on Santa Monica Boulevard that offered a holistic approach for caring for their customers, many of whom were HIV+ or persons with AIDS.
Ruth subsequently asked her good friend Mark Lehman, a prominent lawyer and active member of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, to join the effort. Mark, like the other founders, needed no convincing. Mark led the effort to incorporate our non-profit, the Foundation for The AIDS Monument, which we call FAM for short, in 2013. We elected Jason Kennedy as our first Board Chair. Jason was succeeded as Board Chair in 2015 by Mark Lehman who served as Chair until the end of 2020.
In 2014, we turned our attention to the architectural design for the Monument. Led by FAM’s Design Committee Chair Rogerio Carvalheiro, a committee comprised of FAM Board members and Andrew Campbell and Rebecca Ehemann from the City of West Hollywood ran a curated, competitive process for finding an artist who could capture the vision of the AIDS Monument. We invited seventeen (17) artists to participate. Twelve (12) concept proposals were submitted from artists around the world, of which four (4) were chosen as finalists. The four finalists’ proposals were reviewed at a public event. The design by Australian artist Daniel Tobin of Urban Arts Project (or, UAP) was unanimously selected by FAM’s Board and City representatives and later approved by the City’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission.
In 2016, FAM and the City of West Hollywood signed an agreement to collaborate on the development and construction of the Monument in West Hollywood Park in a highly visible spot along San Vicente Blvd. in the heart of West Hollywood, one of the epicenters of the AIDS crisis.
Our agreement called for FAM to lead a capital campaign to finance the development and construction of the Monument. Once completed, FAM would assign ownership of the Monument to the City of West Hollywood, which would maintain it in perpetuity.
Led by Mark Lehman, our capital campaign received significant donations from Cedars-Sinai, the hospital where so many of our brothers and sisters were treated while fighting AIDS, and from Visit West Hollywood, whose members in the hospitality business community were so heavily impacted by the AIDS crisis. We also launched our signature annual fundraising event, a photo auction called “photo15” at Milk Studios. Conceived and produced by FAM Board Member Bobby Heller and John Gile, the photo auction became an annual event, generating well over $1 million in revenues over the course of 7 photo events.
Our development efforts, which received significant support from longtime fundraiser John Gile, were primarily focused on individuals and mission-aligned foundations, who stepped up in impressive numbers and size to support the Monument. By the time our capital campaign was completed in 2019, FAM had raised its target amount of over $5 million through donations and grants from over 1,300 donors including 55 major donors who contributed $25,000 or more. We also received considerable support through generous grants from the County of Los Angeles and the State of California.
Several delays in the development and construction of the Aquatic & Recreation Center and other aspects of West Hollywood Park led to delays in the AIDS Monument. Our project was intended to be the last phase in the Park’s redevelopment. Of course, COVID further delayed everything. With the passage of time and the onslaught of inflation, costs soared. Rather than having UAP design and build the Monument, the decision was made to hire a local general contractor to lead the construction effort. Our good fortune was having the City of West Hollywood as a partner, as they generously agreed to absorb the increased cost of the Monument and hire the contractor.
Once the capital campaign was completed, we focused on developing our website with design firm Loyal Studios, including digital content that visitors to the Monument site could access in order to enhance their experience at the site. FAM Board Members Irwin Rappaport, Bruce Brown and Rogerio Carvalheiro worked closely with Loyal in designing the website. FAM also developed an extensive timeline of the AIDS crisis, led by me and with significant contribution by journalist Karen Ocamb and FAM Administrative Assistant Karen Eyres. The redesigned website was launched in 2021.
A central aspect of the digital content is an extensive oral history of the AIDS crisis, called Hear Our STORIES. Conceived and produced by our current Board Chair Irwin Rappaport, this ongoing project currently offers 125 audio stories about people who passed from AIDS, about caregivers, activists, volunteers and AIDS service organizations, stories told by ordinary people as well as celebrities (many AIDS activists in their own right) who remembered friends lost to AIDS and those who inspired them. Many of the earlier audio stories originated on The AIDS Memorial page on Instagram with which FAM had a multi-year agreement.
Once Irwin Rappaport moved from Vice-Chair to Board Chair in 2021, FAM focused its efforts on expanding the Hear Our STORIES collection, along with producing twelve (12) community storytelling events called STORIES Circles over the course of 3 years, and overseeing the construction of the Monument. In addition, with assistance from Board members Dr. David Hardy and Steve Simon and volunteer consultants Stephen Bennett and David Gere, Irwin wrote and produced the Brief History of HIV/AIDS, which is available on the website and to visitors to the Monument. The STORIES Circle events were produced in partnership with over a dozen community organizations and allowed participants from diverse geographic and demographic sections of our Los Angeles family to share personal stories in small groups about how HIV/AIDS impacted their lives.
In 2023, The City of West Hollywood engaged engineering and design firm LPA Design Studios to create engineered drawings based on the design by Dan Tobin, and in 2024 it hired PCL Construction as the general contractor for construction of the Monument. Fortunately, a local foundry, American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, CA, was able to fabricate the 147 bronze “Traces” which are the centerpiece of the Monument design. Travertine stone was selected and local stone masons in Santa Ana, CA, engraved the quotations, historical information and donor names throughout the Monument.
For eight of its 12 years since incorporation, FAM has been a Board-led organization with one part-time Administrative Assistant. Michael Ferrera and Tony Valenzuela served separate terms as Executive Director during 4 of those years. FAM’s success is due in large part to its Board’s dedicated leadership, fundraising and spirit of volunteerism. We thank our donors and supporters for their generosity and patience over the years as we worked to bring the Monument from concept to reality. We are proud to finally have a beautiful, reverential place where we can gather to REMEMBER, CELEBRATE and EDUCATE.
