New York City AIDS Memorial

The New York City AIDS Memorial stands at the entrance of a park that occupies a powerful place in medical and civil rights history. This site sits directly across the street from the former St. Vincent's Hospital. During the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic, that hospital operated the first and largest AIDS ward on the East Coast. For many, this intersection of West Twelfth Street, Greenwich Avenue, and Seventh Avenue is considered the symbolic epicenter of the crisis in New York. The memorial was placed here to honor the tens of thousands of New Yorkers lost to the disease and to recognize the activists and caregivers who fought for survival and medical change nearby.