Comments (1) Best Morbid Display of Gay Pride - 2007

Columbarium

Rainbow flags have waved over so many aspects of city life that it's not surprising to find them in a final resting place; still, it's a nice sight. The Columbarium is an exquisite, 110-year-old building in the Richmond where the cremated remains of thousands of San Franciscans are tucked away in niches — or "apartments," as caretaker Emmitt Watson calls them. The more modern niches hold not just urns, but mementos and souvenirs from lives well lived. Thus, the rainbow flags, the teddy bear dressed like a leather daddy, the handcuffs. Harvey Milk's remains are here, in a sedate niche that showcases a photograph of the smiling martyr. The rainbow-heavy ranks are also a result of a grim reaping — during the worst of the AIDS epidemic many gay men who were felled by the disease chose to leave their dust in the city they loved so well.