Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press Saturday, 5 October 1996
Dozens of people have been gathering at the 15-acre site in Golden Gate Park since the Senate voted Thursday to designate the area as the AIDS National Memorial Grove. President Clinton is expected to sign the bill including the designation.
The grove was conceived in 1989 by a small group of people who had lost loved ones to AIDS.
Michael Boland, a landscape architect who helped design the grove, said it also has become a safe haven for people around the country who are not allowed to grieve publicly in their own communities.
The goal was to create a "vessel" that visitors could personalize, so they could become part of the grove's life, Boland said.
Some people plant bushes. Others pour water into bowls carved into rocks for small flower bouquets, he said. And, each week, one man gently places eggs in rock crevices -- a Hindu offering.
Funded through private donations, improvements to the long-neglected wooded dell began in 1991. Now surrounded by rhododendrons, Japanese maples, mossy paths and a fern grotto, the grove is tended by volunteers who meet every third Saturday -- sometimes by the hundreds -- to weed, work the soil and plant.
Writer Armistead Maupin, author of "Tales of the City," said he is constantly surprised by the grove's changing foliage and flowers during his frequent visits.
"It embraces you so completely when you enter it," he said at a gathering Friday to celebrate the national designation.
The Rev. Cecil Williams, pastor of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, offered a prayer Friday to bless the grove.
He called upon the "spirit of humanity" to break down the barriers that divide people and the "spirit of rejoicing" to celebrate the grove's existence.
"Let this be a grove of love," Williams said, raising his arms toward the sky, then shouting, "Amen."
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