W. Hollywood Plan for AIDS Memorial Succumbs to Critics

An ambitious plan for a monument in West Hollywood to honor people who have died of AIDS has collapsed amid controversy over spending money on a memorial when many people afflicted with the disease face financial hardship.

Instead, city officials are considering designating a small grove of trees and a walkway in the soon-to-be-developed William S. Hart Park as an AIDS memorial.

“Unfortunately, the timing doesn’t appear to have been right (for a monument),” said City Councilman Steve Schulte, who had pushed the idea. “It turned out to be not so clear in the community what should be done, or even why those who were behind it wanted to do it.”

‘Visceral Sense’

Others associated with the effort to build what some envisioned as a monument of national significance expressed surprise at public opposition to the plan after the City Council last month approved the idea in principle.

“I don’t want to say there was a tidal wave of letters and phone calls, but there was definitely a visceral sense (among supporters) that this wasn’t going to be as popular a proposal as we originally expected, and we were frankly surprised at that,” Schulte aide Mark Vandervelden said.

The council’s action essentially was a gesture of moral support, since the estimated $120,000 to $160,000 needed for the project presumably would have come from private sources.

Schulte blamed negative reaction to the idea on “a widespread misconception that the city was somehow talking about paying for the whole thing.” He said city officials talked informally about possibly using $10,000 or $20,000 of public funds for a design competition after some members of the city’s Fine Arts Advisory Board said such a competition was needed.

However, others said opposition to a monument had little to do with the source of the funds.

“How could we look at facing any kind of large fund-raiser for a memorial when there are people out there (with acquired immune deficiency syndrome) who need money to live on,” said Tony Melia, president of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “I’m for a monument in principle, but not now while we’re still in the throes of a war against AIDS. We can think about building huge facades after the war is over.”

The idea for a memorial took shape last year after Robert Bell, a Santa Monica screenwriter, approached Schulte and other city officials with a design for a 10-foot-high granite monument in the shape of an ellipse curved upward and capped with an eternal flame.

In a city with an estimated 25% to 30% homosexual population, supporters seized upon the idea as a source of comfort and hope, saying it could serve as a “cathartic wailing wall” for those who have lost friends, relatives and loved ones.

Bell said he was not interested in financial gain from the monument, and a city-sponsored estimate of his design cost omitted any design fee.

Members Felt Snubbed

Although the council did not endorse Bell’s proposal when it supported the concept of a memorial, the project ran into immediate difficulty with the arts panel, some of whose members felt snubbed at not being consulted.

The arts panel appeared to dismiss Bell’s idea before having seen it. Several of its members called for a competition to select an artist of international stature to design a monument.

John Christofferson, the board’s vice chairman and one of those most critical of the council’s handling of the matter, suggested that such a project was “too important to be left to the first artist who comes along” and called for a memorial “that is to AIDS what the Vietnam Memorial is to the war.”

But some supporters of the monument idea, including those who like Bell’s design, say privately that the prospect of the memorial becoming national in scope may have helped to dampen enthusiasm for it in the community.

“I think there is a sense in some quarters that what West Hollywood doesn’t need right now is to foster the image that it is somehow an epicenter of the AIDS epidemic,” said one supporter who did not want to be identified.

Concern Over Cost

Jim Dionisio, an AIDS Project Los Angeles official who had served in an informal group Schulte organized to push for a memorial, expressed skepticism that concern over cost should result in the monument plan’s demise.

“The cost issue was something we discussed at length early on: whether or not it is appropriate to raise money for a monument at a time when there are human needs,” he said. “The conclusion we came to was that the type of money we hoped to acquire through grants to finance a monument would in no way interfere with the resources available for AIDS patients.”

He and others expressed hope that plans for a monument might be revived.

“I still want to see it happen,” said Carl Parsons, an official with Aid for AIDS, a group that provides financial assistance to those with the disease. “I just don’t want to tear the community apart doing it.”

Meanwhile, Bell was philosophical about the latest turn of events. “I guess maybe I designed the right monument at the wrong time.”