One of the custodians of the memorial wall at Bank of America in San Francisco’s Castro LGBTQ neighborhood told the Bay Area Reporter on April 24 that there was vandalism there. Posters dedicated to three deceased people were apparently torn down by an unknown assailant.
The bank, located at the intersection of Castro and 18th streets, has long been a place where people place memorials, including for well-known incidents like the 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, as well as for ordinary people who have died.
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” said Patrick Batt, a gay man who, with the consent of the bank’s management, helps care for the space and who owns the Auto Erotica business a few doors down on 18th Street. “All I can tell you is when I left the neighborhood Tuesday [April 22] afternoon, the three memorials that had been put up in the previous two-three days were there intact. When I came to the neighborhood at about 9:30 Wednesday morning, there were remnants of two of the memorials still up – the parts attached to where the tape was – and one memorial was completely gone.”
The area on the 18th Street side of the bank began to be used as a memorial space during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s. Longtime Castro denizens call it “Hibernia Beach,” because in those days memorials were affixed to the wall of a branch of the now-defunct Hibernia Bank. Bank of America took over the space in 1992, but allowed the memorials to continue, which expanded to include not just members of the queer community in the Castro or San Francisco but also to memorialize Princess Diana in 1997, gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard in 1998, and victims of the COVID pandemic.
The B.A.R. reported that in 2021 the financial giant initially posted signs that appeared to ban impromptu memorials. After community backlash, the memorials were allowed to continue within certain parameters. One of Batt’s jobs is to enforce those rules, such as that no candles be left behind.
“I don’t know when it happened,” Batt said of the apparent vandalism. “I’m uncertain who did it. I’m guessing it might have been somebody with maybe a mental health issue. I can’t believe it’s been done by somebody in the community.”
In a letter to the B.A.R., Batt stated, “I hope this is a one-off case of vandalism and encourage anyone who sees this type of behavior to record it so the perpetrator can be held accountable. I further encourage the people who posted the memorials in question to remount them.”
Batt, who did not take photos of the damage, said the remnants were cleaned up afterward by someone unknown, and that the space is now empty. He said that he did not report the incident to the San Francisco Police Department.
Castro Community Benefit District Executive Director Andrea Aiello, a lesbian, had not heard of what had happened when reached for comment April 24. She said the CBD wouldn't have been responsible for the posters having been taken down.
Bank of America didn’t return a request for comment for this report.
Batt said that he has never seen this type of vandalism.
“I don't recall this ever happening before, and it marks a sad turn in the 40-plus year history of this sacred space,” he wrote.
Updated, 4/29/25: This article has been updated to state that the Castro CBD is not responsible for the memorial.
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