Harvey Milk Plaza in San Francisco is getting improvements to make it worthy of its namesake

A plaza worthy of its namesake

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

Harvey Milk Plaza in San Francisco is getting improvements to make it worthy of its name.

Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza is spearheading the move to construct the Memorial at Harvey Milk Plaza, located at the site where the late gay city supervisor and other activists once stood on boxes and gave speeches. In 1980 the site became the entrance to the Castro transit station, and five years later then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein named it Harvey Milk Plaza.

“It was never designed to be a plaza,” says Brian Springfield, cofounder and executive director of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza. “It doesn’t function well as a gathering space. Almost since it was named Harvey Milk Plaza, the community has talked about reimagining it. … This idea is finally going to happen.”

Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza formed around the end of 2016, when the community heard of plans to install an elevator in the middle of the plaza. The group wants to make sure the elevator is installed but see that it doesn’t block any commemorative features.

The group held community meetings to get input on what should be at the memorial. “Our commitment all along has been to include and involve the grassroots of the community,” Springfield says. “We decided we would honor not only Harvey but people throughout the history, past and present, of the Castro. Harvey came to San Francisco and landed in the Castro because something was under way here. Harvey came here with tens of thousands of other gay men and women. We are committed to lifting up Harvey, but we want people to understand the broader story of what happened in the Castro.” He notes the importance of activists such as Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, and Sally Miller Gearhart.

The organization worked with SWA Group, which wove in transit and infrastructure enhancements that will be funded by Proposition B, approved by San Francisco voters last year, which allocated $25 million in public funds. Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza is doing a capital campaign for commemorative features and a three-year operating fund. The operating fund will total $12 million, $7 million of which will cover the costs of the commemorative features.

Those features will include plaques, an exhibit space, and a stage where events can be held and, when it’s not in use for that, visitors can sit and take in the memorial. “Instead of having statue of Harvey, there will be space for the community,” Springfield says.

In the exhibit space, which will be at the concourse, some of the exhibits will be semipermanent, others rotating. An artist in residency program is a possibility, he says.

Harvey Milk is having a moment

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

California State Sen. Scott Wiener has helped secure some state funding to cover day-to-day operations, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi secured federal funding last year. The latter is still to come, and of course many grants have been rescinded by the current presidential administration, but it has been OK’d by Congress. “It would be extremely difficult for them to not make good on this,” Springfield says.

Everyone celebrated when Stonewall became a national monument, he notes, but we’ve learned we can’t trust the federal government, what with its erasure of transgender people there. The memorial will be a community-controlled space, not subject to these threats.

Tina Aguirre, director of the Castro LGBTQ History District, says the space will be “a container for queer joy,” Springfield says. Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza is working toward a groundbreaking in 2026 and grand opening in 2028.

The group has both a working board and an honorary board. The latter includes such notables as activists and Milk contemporaries Cleve Jones and Danny Nicoletta; Black trans city official Honey Mahogany; filmmaker Rob Epstein, who directed the Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk; and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for the 2008 biopic Milk.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the wide release of The Times of Harvey Milk, and events are planned in San Francisco today around that and the fact that it’s Harvey Milk Day, the 95th anniversary of his birth. From 5:30 to 6:10 p.m., there will be a program at Jane Warner Plaza at Castro and Market Streets, with remarks from San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. From 6:15 to 6:45 p.m., there will be a march to the Roxie Theater, where The Times of Harvey Milk will screen at 7 p.m.

Also, San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle will perform Harvey Milk Reimagined, a new adaptation of the opera about Milk, from May 31 through June 7.

“Harvey Milk is having a moment here in San Francisco, and the timing couldn’t be any more relevant,” Springfield says.

Scroll on for more images of the planned memorial.

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering

Courtesy of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza/SWA Group

San Francisco Harvey Milk Plaza upgrade rendering