A fitting tribute
The Gus Van Sant movie Milk premiered here last night. It chronicles the life and times of slain S.F. Supervisor Harvey Milk, who tirelessly advocated for gay rights and other community issues, including public transit. He was thanked for all that hard work with scores of adoring fans across the country, broken barriers to equality, and five bullets in his body, courtesy of then-Supervisor Dan White.
In a tribute to Milk, the San Francisco Municipal Railway has dedicated one of its cars as a moving tribute to the supervisor, who was killed almost exactly 30 years ago. You can read the SFGate story here.
Here’s my favorite quote, which is most relevant to this site:
“He was pushing for a better Muni at a time when no one else really was in City Hall.”
-Rick Laubscher, president of the nonprofit Market Street Railway.
I complain to no end about the F, as a commuter, because it was a good idea that was/is poorly executed. But as I’ve noted before, they are charming little pieces of San Francisco history. If more and more people, including tourists, ride this memorial car and get a hint of what Milk did for our city 30 years ago, then I’d say the investment was a good one. Thanks, Muni.
Tara Ramroop can’t wait to see Milk when it comes out for all us regular people. She also hopes that the district elections bring more inspired, tireless public servants to the SF Board of Supervisors.
if you check out the Chron story you’ll see a photo of Harvey with Curtis Green, who was the head of MUNI at the time. Curtis worked his way up the ranks to become the head of MUNI, and was the first African American to head up a transit agency in the US (or at least MUNI i can’t recall)
At a time when the MUNI was having issues, he would hand out green buttons that said “MUNI Loves You” when they’d made some fixes needed at the time.
Amazing. What would they hand out now? “Muni — You’re Lucky to Arrive at All, so Shut up About On Time”