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		Metropolis Development Company Commemorates AIDS' 25th Anniversary with Street Banner June 1, 2006 Metropolis Development Company commemorates the 25th anniversary of AIDS with a 25' X 13' banner hanging above the bustling intersection of 14th and P Streets, NW in Washington, DC's dynamic Logan Circle neighborhood and emerging arts district. June 5, 2006 will mark the 25th anniversary of the first published disclosure of medical anomalies, the reporting of which marked the start date of what became the AIDS epidemic. The Metropolis banner replicates the first paragraph of that disclosure which appeared in the June 5, 1981 U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The banner is installed on Metropolis' nearly completed Cooper Lewis condominium project through June 12, 2006. Coldly clinical the banner makes no political statement but is meant to evoke memory and encourage dialogue. On June 5, 1981 the MMWR detailed 5 cases of a rare pneumonia, "Pneumocystis carinii", among 5 young men, all gay, in Los Angeles, California. "The patients did not know each other and had no known common contacts or knowledge of sexual partners who had had similar illnesses", the report said. Shortly thereafter, on July 3, 1981, the New York Times, published the first mainstream media report of a "rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer" diagnosed among 41 gay men in New York and Los Angeles. Metropolis Development Company issues this statement regarding the banner installation. "A brief pause in the forward momentum of commerce presents Metropolis with a spectacular canvas in the form of a finished building at a site perfectly symbolic of the revitalization of the Nation's Capital. It is a timely and appropriate opportunity to honor the generation spanned by the first 25 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We hope that by doing so we revitalize new generations to awareness, vigilance, and action in confronting this grave health crisis still affecting millions in our community and worldwide. For many this report timestamps a defining issue of life. In and of itself the 1981 CDC report has impact. Only in retrospect is it clear that the report forever altered perceptions of the time which came before HIV/AIDS and profoundly changed all about the time which came after." Metropolis Development Company with its headquarters and sales center on 14th Street, is a residential and retail developer with a business and civic commitment to Washington, DC communities. Metropolis has completed or has under construction 603,338 square feet of artful, urban development within the Greater 14th Street Historic District. > return to news listing