San Francisco Pink triangle Pride display celebrates 30th year – NBC Bay Area

A major San Francisco Pride month tradition is celebrating its 30th year. The giant pink triangle displayed each year on the face of Twin Peaks is being installed for the 30th time.

On this milestone, one of the triangle’s co-founders said he believes the symbol’s message is more important now than ever.

Volunteers convened at Twin Peaks on Friday to build the pink outline for this year’s triangle, which spans about an acre. They faced the wind and overgrown poison oak plants as they installed pink sailcloth borders, which are 240 feet long and five feet wide.

Patrick Carney, who co-founded this tradition and still helps lead it today, said this step of creating the outline is necessary to prepare for the work Saturday, where around 800 volunteers will fill in the outline with 175 bright-pink tarps.

What started for Carney as a spontaneous project with friends has evolved into one of the most recognizable symbols of San Francisco’s Pride celebrations.

“We just wanted to add a little color to the Pride parade and spread it across town,” he recalled. “There’s a big blank canvas on Twin Peaks, so I thought, ‘Let’s put something up there.'”

“We put it up in the dark of night, just to have it appear — sort of anonymously– on top of Twin Peaks, but we didn’t expect it to continue,” he continued.

Carney said his friend suggested installing a rainbow flag, but he wanted to have something different, because there were already quite a few rainbow flag displays in the city.

“I always say the pink triangle and the rainbow flag are the Yin and Yang of the gay rights movement,” Carney said. “The pink triangle was, of course, forged in the Holocaust, and the rainbow flag was born out of love, hope, and optimism.”

Carney said he thought it was important to use the pink triangle symbol once he realized that not many people were aware of its history.

The triangle originated in Nazi concentration camps, where prisoners were identified with different badges sewn onto their uniforms. People deemed ‘homosexuals’ were forced to wear a pink triangle badge and were often targeted.

The pink triangle symbol has since been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community. In the 1970s, it was used as a symbol against homophobia, and in the 1980s it was used to call attention to the AIDs epidemic.

“And I think with what we’re facing today, it becomes even more important,” noted Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, the nonprofit that facilitates the city’s Pride Celebrations. San Francisco Pride is also a financial sponsor of the pink triangle display.

Ford noted that recent actions by the Trump administration, including targeting transgender individuals and renaming the naval ship named for San Francisco LGBTQ pioneer Harvey Milk, make the triangle’s message especially relevant today.

“I think it’s a symbol for us: we never want to go back to a point where we would let anyone else make us feel shameful about who we are and who we love,” Ford said.

Carney emphasized that’s the point of the triangle display: to learn from history and strive for better in the decades to come.

Three decades later, he has watched his idea grow and be embraced by the city.

“It’s so gratifying to see that kind of support and that kind of acceptance,” he said.

Saturday, volunteers will complete the triangle display from 7 to 10 a.m. Then, community leaders will host a commemoration ceremony there.

Carney noted that volunteers are still needed, including volunteers to help take down the triangle at the end of the month. The triangle will be up this year through June 29.