A city hall, often, is a monument.
It’s a massive stone landmark that can be a monument to the people and their rights, a monument of both justice and injustice, a monument to everything that is bold and progressive about government and everything that is mind-numbingly dull. A monument to oppression or to freedom, depending on the people inside it and who’s looking in from outside.
In San Francisco, City Hall is one of the grandest monuments of LGBTQ history — locally and globally — and the struggle for recognition and equal rights. No other city hall in the country, even the world, shares the close, personal ties to LGBTQ history — the tragedies, the trials and the triumphs — that San Francisco City Hall does.