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bigtree

(92,989 posts)
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 03:30 PM Oct 6

Republican War On Rainbows

julie k. brown @jkbjournalist 8h
South Beach’s rainbow crosswalk, specially designed to fit Miami Beach’s historic Art Deco architecture, was ripped up on orders of Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday.






...they are infected with their own hatred of anything and anyone that's not straight, or fragile and kowtowing at the altar of cissexist white males.
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progressoid

(52,119 posts)
3. How it came to be.
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 03:56 PM
Oct 6
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rainbow-crosswalk-miami-beach

...Horowitz’s color palette would become a model for Miami Beach’s historic district and a trendsetter for a generation. Unfortunately, Lenny would not live to see the full revival of South Beach. Like so many gay men of that era, he passed away from complications of the AIDS virus in 1989. He was only 43 years old. The next year, a street would be renamed in his honor, and around that same time, Miami Beach’s Palace Bar opened, the only gay bar on Ocean Drive. Famous for its drag show brunches and celebrity spotting, the bar has become a pillar of the community.

The Palace Bar began painting a rainbow crosswalk on Ocean Drive in 2009 to mark its shows and the corner as a safe space for the community. The City later agreed to make a permanent landmark that would honor the impact that the LGBTQ+ community has made upon Miami Beach, and on November 9, 2018, the Rainbow Crosswalk was dedicated.

The crosswalk, designed by Savino Miller studio, is made from terrazzo pavers, arranged in a familiar Art Deco pattern, with rainbow colors designed to emit a faint glow at night. However, the crosswalk’s colors are not the traditional rainbow of the Pride flag. Instead, the colors were all chosen from Leonard Horowitz’s pastel palette. In this way, the crosswalk, like so much of Miami Beach’s architecture, is a physical reminder of the impact Lenny made upon the culture of the world.

maxsolomon

(37,552 posts)
4. Don't understand how demolishing a crosswalk on a Miami street is in DeSantis' power.
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 05:42 PM
Oct 6

It should be under Miami Dept of Transportation's purview.

On Edit:
Here's how:

The crosswalk’s removal comes after FDOT ordered local governments, including Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West, to remove pavement art “associated with social, political, or ideological messages” — or risk losing state funding.


https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article312394535.html

maxsolomon

(37,552 posts)
6. In theory, no it wouldn't
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 06:07 PM
Oct 6

There's going to replace it with boring white paint so Magats that never come into South Beach don't feel they're having equality forced on them.

Poor dears, so put upon.

maxsolomon

(37,552 posts)
10. They are using their power to coerce Miami into submission to their new FDOT orders
Tue Oct 7, 2025, 12:15 PM
Tuesday

Last edited Tue Oct 7, 2025, 01:00 PM - Edit history (1)

I just didn't understand it.

OldBaldy1701E

(9,308 posts)
7. Just paint it back.
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 06:19 PM
Oct 6

When they remove it, do it again.

Make them waste manpower and money protecting a freaking intersection. Protest it night and day. Make them work to just even remain there.

Bigotry doesn't rest.

littlemissmartypants

(30,063 posts)
8. Not including the love and labor...
Tue Oct 7, 2025, 03:10 AM
Tuesday

$50 to $100 per square foot is the average cost for terrazzo. Of course, there is no price that can be put on a tribute to a meaningful life like the studio's namesake.

But what would the shallow, small-minded Republicans know about that?

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