(light music) - AIDS Garden Chicago is three and a half acres of a park with a purpose, commemorating, memorializing and really a tribute to those affected and being affected by HIV and AIDS.

It is in a very special place, to the LGBTQ community of Chicago.

This was the location for the Belmont Rocks, where in the '70s and '80s and '90s, people in the community would gather to grab some rays, to picnic, to socialize, to swim, to take naps and just overall hang out.

(light music continues) - It was so important as a place to be ourselves, out in the sunshine at a time when our, our bars still had darkened windows.

(light music continues) - This is really the only place where you could come and be outside and be gay and in some cases flamboyantly, hysterically gay, during the day with the sun on you.

Every weekend was like a family barbecue.

You dish, you gossiped, played music, you danced, those who were brave enough to actually try and get in the water (laughing) went swimming.

It was always too cold for me.

(light music continues) - I was one of those people who would gather here.

Now my husband, Brad Lippitz, we would hang out right over there and I've got a picture of me with my puka shells on, verifying that it was indeed in the '80s.

(light music continues) - The Belmont Rocks were these approximately eight foot by four foot limestone blocks.

People might carve the initials of themselves and a boyfriend or girlfriend at the time or they might draw an elaborate mural.

These rocks were an open air art gallery for a lot of the queer community.

(music continues) - We're very lucky that we had this parcel of land, which is quite beautiful now but it was actually so ugly at the time.

No one wanted it, (chuckling) which is why we got it.

(laughing) So, but we, as with all things, gay people can take anything and make it fabulous.

(music continues) Especially during the AIDS crisis, it became really important to have a place to gather, in community and fellowship.

(music continues) - A lot of the people that gathered here were those people who were directly affected by HIV and AIDS.

Sadly, it really tore through the community and remember at that point, there was no treatment, there was no cure.

(music continues) - When I was 29, I didn't know anyone who was HIV positive and by the time I turned 30, six of my friends had died.

(music continues) - They were people who had their whole lives ahead of them.

People even in their teens, 20s and 30s, who are not here.

And that's really a source of sadness.

But there's also some amount of anger for those of us who live through it.

(music continues) - It is not a pretty story by any means, but ultimately it is a story of triumph.

A community that had no power, no infrastructure, no agency.

So many of the things we take for granted today in this community came about as ideas that started in somebody's kitchen.

(music continues) What the AIDS Garden reminds me of is the huge hole in history that is missing around this story because I am perfectly aware that there are forces that want that story to remain a secret.

(music continues) If we can use the AIDS Garden as a vehicle to begin to tell that story from all the perspectives, not just gay white men, but from the Black community, the Hispanic community, the women's community from doctors, from nurses, from politicians, from activists.

Each one of those groups experienced AIDS in a different way and our goal is to be able to bring all of that here.

(music continues) It's lovely, it's beautiful.

It's Chicago's spectacular Lake Front.

It's very peaceful.

It's unique 'cause of the Keith Haring statue.

(music continues) - This was a place of celebration and of fun in all its forms.

There were unions here, there were memorials here.

There were just people hanging out and having fun.

And truthfully, as anyone probably who's lived through the worst years of the AIDS crisis, those memories are for me, the really important ones that I want to maintain and keep from that period.

(music continues) The AIDS Garden for me is a way to continue the spirit of the Belmont Rocks.

(music fades)