Polk neighbors derail LGBT history mural

By Matt Baume, Bay Area Reporter

A proposed mural depicting the LGBT history of Polk Street may never be painted due to objections from neighbors.

The mural is a joint project of the Lower Polk Neighbors and the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, intended to instill local pride while beautifying a blank wall on the side of Hemlock Alley.

In fall of 2010, an LPN committee selected two neighborhood artists, Helen Bayly and Aaron Bo Heimlich, and asked them to design a mural depicting the influence of Polk Street's Beat poet community on the LGBT movement.

The artists showed a preliminary mockup at an LPN meeting last month. Half of their design is monochrome and shows historical police harassment, public poetry readings, and protests near Civic Center. The other half depicts a colorful, inclusive contemporary Pride Parade, framed by figures such as Harvey Milk.

Bayly and Heimlich consulted with the GLBT Historical Society, and incorporated actual incidents of police harassment, as well as tributes to social service organizations and their clients.

Reaction from LPN members was decidedly hostile.

"People said, 'That's the Castro, that's not here,'" said LPN Chairman Ron Case.

"The mural itself was really, really crude, very poorly done," said David Villa-Lobos, executive director of Community Leadership Alliance, a neighborhood advocacy group. "Folks felt that a lot of it has more to do with the Castro, and far more to do with Pride and that kind of thing, than it does with the history of Polk Street."

The artists were surprised by the reaction.

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