AIDS Memorial unveiled in NYC

35 years since the outbreak of AIDS New York is about to unveil its
first memorial to the city's one hundred thousand people who died in
the epidemic.

The $6 million dollar memorial has taken six years to complete and
becomes the first major site of remembrance in the city.

Nick Harper reports from New York.

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TAKE VO
The Memorial has been built on what is considered to be Ground Zero of
New York's AIDS epidemic, the symbolic epicenter.
Across the way is the former St Vincent's Hospital, what was the east
coast's first and largest AIDS ward, where many with the virus spent
their final days.

Christopher Tepper "Our generation has already forgotten so much of
what happen because there weren't space, there weren't physical
tributes, there's nothing taught in text books about AIDS activists
history. I think if you took a poll on the street now and said how
many people died from New York City, no one would know it was more
than a hundred thousand people. And that's more than died in the
Vietnam war from the entire country, the entire United States, just
from AIDS here in New York."

TAKE VO
Developers are now turning St Vincent's into luxury apartments - a
move that spurred on the idea of needing an actual memorial.
The hospital itself is now gone. But the memorial stands in its shadow
in one of New York's public parks.
And the architects hope that because it's open to the public it'll
give people an opportunity to interact with the memorial and to
remember.
And while there's that acknowledgment of the past, they also want the
memorial to stand as recognition for a fight not yet won.

Mateo Paiva "We need to remember that this is not finished, this is
not like a war that is over. There's still a battle going on to
eradicate this and sometimes you need to be reminded that this is not
gone and there are still people who are suffering."

TAkE VO
The memorial will open to the public later this month.
Making the memory of the victims of this invisible virus very visible
in this part of the city.
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