It’s been a long time coming, but the wait is almost over.
On Sunday, November 16, 2025, the City of West Hollywood and the Foundation for The AIDS Monument will officially unveil STORIES: The AIDS Monument, a project years in the making that now stands on the east side of West Hollywood Park.
The public ceremony starts at 4 p.m. at the Pacific Design Center plaza, 750 N. San Vicente Boulevard, directly across from the new installation. RSVP here.
Performances are set from the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles and Jake Wesley Rogers, with speakers who’ve spent decades in HIV and AIDS advocacy. When the program ends, guests will cross San Vicente to tour the monument, then head to The Abbey Food & Bar at 5:45 p.m. for a community reception.
A Project With a Long Backstory
The monument’s journey started more than ten years ago. Australian artist Daniel Tobin, who lives with HIV, designed the piece after being selected through an international search. His plan called for 147 bronze pillars—he calls them Traces—rising 13 feet into the air. At dusk, each one lights from the top, a quiet echo of the candlelight vigils that defined the early AIDS years.
Thirty of the pillars carry words drawn from the Hear Our STORIES archive, a growing oral-history collection that now includes more than 125 first-person accounts from people who lived through the crisis. More at aidsmonument.org.
This grand opening follows a major programming shift announced last week. As WEHOonline reported, ONE Institute will take over events and public programming for STORIES: The AIDS Monument by the end of the year, working in partnership with the City and community groups to launch monthly tours, art activations, and history-focused events beginning in 2026.
City Council votes, budget fights, and pandemic slowdowns stretched construction over several years. WEHOonline followed that progress closely—covering the early planning meetings, the cost overruns, and the 2023 decision to restart the bidding process. Now, the project is complete.
Why It Matters
The AIDS epidemic reshaped West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s. Loved ones and entire circles of friends disappeared. The City responded quickly, funding service groups, opening housing programs, and launching public-health campaigns that were far ahead of their time. West Hollywood has always been a city that stands tall and fights a good fight. The AIDS crisis was no different.
The new monument honors that history. It remembers the people who died, the activists who marched, the caregivers who stayed, and the doctors and researchers who fought to keep people alive. It also speaks to the present: West Hollywood’s HIV Zero campaign still pushes toward ending new infections and stigma city-wide.
If You Go
Grand Opening Ceremony
Date: Sunday, November 16, 2025
Time: 4 p.m.
Location: Pacific Design Center plaza, 750 N. San Vicente Boulevard
RSVP: aidsmonument.eventbrite.com
Tour & Reception
Tour: Immediately after the ceremony at STORIES: The AIDS Monument, 647 N. San Vicente Boulevard
Reception: 5:45 p.m. at The Abbey Food & Bar, 692 N. Robertson Boulevard
A Living Reminder
STORIES: The AIDS Monument isn’t meant to sit quietly in a park. It’s built to invite conversation, to connect people who weren’t there with those who were, and to remind West Hollywood why remembrance still matters.
The Trump administration’s approach to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic domestically was implementing policies & budget proposals that involved major funding cuts ending HIV/AIDS research in-spite of considerable progress made in AIDS Vaccine development, ending prevention programs and, domestic & global health aid ending free PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) medication to low-income, uninsured patients. The MAGA plan to end or contain AIDS is basically to attain maximum infection in high risk groups which they see as undesirables, then withhold healthcare so that all those infected die off ASAP !
Because what better way to remember AIDS victims is a bunch of french fries in formation
All the pictures show beautiful goldish pillars – and now they are dirt brown. The decision because of uneven tarnishing, but looks like a net of death.
I wholeheartedly agree. The finish shouldn’t have been changed. The golden hue was empowering and the finish looks like jail bars. I think an opportunity was missed to make these have a sound element. Remember we use to say “silence equals death”