There is, in front of City Hall in Manhattan, a plaza with that very name. Does anyone know how such a crass moniker came to be chosen?
It’s puzzled me for a few years why, if HIV/AIDS Awareness was their objective, they wouldn’t name it after, say, Ryan White. “People With AIDS” seems like a pretty dull, almost offensive, choice, akin to naming Martin Luther King Blvd, “Black Guy Street.”
I’m curious if there are any City Planning insiders here who can offer some insight.
I can’t think of a better name, honoring **all **the people we’ve lost, not just the well-known. Are you looking for some kind of pleasant-sounding euphymism?
I was just wondering why they chose such a clumsy label. you can call it euphemistic, I would call it poor marketing. It’s a greenspace in the City, not a museum or a medical seminar.
why not AIDS Awareness Park, or AIDS Action Park or AIDS Memorial Plaza? All I’m saying is that it’s a peculiar, gloomy, name - most people I’ve spoken to have also been puzzled. In fact, I think you’re the first person who can’t think of a better name.
This probably belongs in IMHO.
Thanks, kk
Apologies for not helping with the question here, but “People with AIDS” implies, people who are alive and have AIDS, and in fact not “people we’ve lost”. (Though that group somehow could be included, if a bit awkwardly).
Possibly the idea was to have the place serve not (only) as a memorial, but as a monument to people who are alive and living with it. Though even in that case, “People with HIV Plaza” would be an improvement.