SEATTLE -- A 20-foot timeline detailing the history of HIV and AIDS now hangs along Broadway Avenue in Capitol Hill to commemorate 30 years since the disease surfaced.
Gay City Health Project and other organizations teamed up to create the timeline, which features local and national events. The timeline hangs from a red wall along Broadway near Denny Way. Two more installments will be added to the wall later this year.
"It's pretty exciting that we were able to put this together," said Fred Swanson with Gay City Health Project. "I hope it helps remind people that HIV is still here."
The timeline shows the first newspaper headline announcing that AIDS had arrived in King County in 1982.
"There was a lot of fear," said Tony Radovich, who remembers life on Capitol Hill at the time. "It was a very profound period of time. It was very sad, very heavy. ... At one point there was a huge vacuum. A lot of people were gone."
There are many ups and downs as the timeline progresses. Celebrities like Arthur Ashe and Ryan White passed away. By 1991, 1 million Americans had been infected by HIV.
Nicole Price was diagnosed with HIV in 2000.
"I never thought it could happen to me," she said. "That was scary for me because I didn't know. I thought I was going to die."
But thanks to medications, she has now been living with HIV for 11 years.
Chris Gabriel has been living with HIV for eight years.
"[The timeline] really helps me to relate to what's happened during that time period and all of these amazing people who have come and gone before me," Gabriel said.
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