World AIDS Day
The NAMES Project officially started in 1987 in San Francisco by Jones, Mike Smith, and volunteers Joseph Durant, Jack Caster, Gert McMullin, Ron Cordova, Larkin Mayo, Steve Kirchner, and Gary Yuschalk. At that time many people who died of AIDS-related causes did not receive funerals, due to both the social stigma of AIDS felt by surviving family members and the outright refusal by many funeral homes and cemeteries to handle the deceased's remains. Lacking a memorial service or grave site, the Quilt was often the only opportunity survivors had to remember and celebrate their loved ones' lives. Volunteers created hundreds and later thousands of panels in a storefront on Market Street.
The Quilt is a memorial to and celebration of the lives of people lost to the AIDS pandemic. Each panel is 3 feet by 6 feet, approximately the size of the average grave; this connects the ideas of AIDS and death more closely.
The entire quilt consisting of over 40,000 panels was displayed on a national tour between 1988 and 1996 to raise awareness, as well as to raise funds to find a cure. In 2019, the Quilt relocated to San Francisco under the permanent care and stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial. In 2020, its archives were relocated to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is warehoused in San Francisco when not being displayed, and continues to grow, consisting of more than 50,000 individual memorial panels (to over 110,000 people) and weighing an estimated 54 tons as of 2022.
The quilt panel which was generously loaned to GOAL by the National AIDS Memorial is currently on display inside of the lobby of NYPD Police Headquarters features a memorial to Jose L. Coss, who was one of the first members of GOAL and one of the first officers to die of AIDS.
GOAL and the NYPD will host a memorial to honor our members who died during the pandemic on Monday, December 2, 2024, 5:30 PM. GOAL will also unveil the working panel for the new official GOAL quilt panel to honor all our members who died of AIDS. The panel which is still being made will be donated to the National AIDS Memorial after World AIDS Day 2025. The event is open to all active and retired members of the service, as well as invited guests. Click here to download the flyer.
For more information, please contact info@goalny.org