SAN FRANCISCO – A giant red ribbon commemorating the upcoming 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic has gone up on a San Francisco hillside.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that about a hundred volunteers spent an hour on Sunday placing the ribbon – made from 15,000 square feet on tarp- on the eastern slope of Twin Peaks.
It will remain up for a month and should be visible from as far away as the East Bay on a clear day.
The project – sponsored by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation – will cost $8,000 to $9,000, mostly for security to prevent possible vandalism overnight.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported on June 5, 1981 that a rare pneumonia had struck five gay men in Los Angeles. The opportunistic infection would be connected to a disease later identified as HIV.
