Pulse is situated a mile south of downtown Orlando’s high-rises, on a primary artery coursing through the city. Cars whiz by as mourners examine the artwork, candles and flowers left with care on the hot pavement out front. A screen displaying the rainbow-colored murals of local artists hangs from a chain-link fence surrounding the gay nightclub, serving as a happy shroud for the carcass of a building, which is painted black as it always was.
“Life is about happiness and joy and sadness and sorrow, and I think to live a full life, one needs to be present to all of it and not turn our backs to things like this. If we ignore this, it could happen again,” said Jim Marshall, who is visiting from Seattle.
“But if we allow ourselves to experience it, feel the grief, feel the sadness, move into the love, that’s really what it’s all about. Again, love always wins, and that’s the value to me of coming here. I can move through a lot of the sadness and anger and move into that place of love and gratitude and experience this very sacred, hallowed place. It’s a blessing.”
To Marshall the club now is a tomb, and he considers whether it, and the surrounding parking lot with all of its heartfelt memorial items, should be left as they are.
Read more: Life After The Pulse, a special report by WMFE, our sister station in Orlando.
"My daughter's life was taken there, and so many others. And somehow when I visit there it's just like the angels embrace me somehow. I feel their love. You know, it's just a feeling I have" - Mayra Alvear, mother of Pulse victim Amanda Alvear
This is the outpouring that inspired Pulse owner Barbara Poma’s plans for a memorial and museum here modeled after ones marking acts of terrorism in New York City and Oklahoma City. I met Poma outside of the club to discuss the details.
Poma established Pulse after her brother died of AIDS, naming it in his memory. She turned down a $2 million offer last year from the city for the club, saying at the time the bid had left her sleepless and she just couldn’t let go.
I arrive as Poma is tidying up the place. She carries a brown bouquet of flowers to a trash bin. She is wearing a sleeveless dress and heels, and at least once during our talk she stops for a photo with a mourner. Her manner is quiet, and perhaps a little uncomfortable with the attention.
“I’ve handed the property and the project over to our families and survivors and everyone here in Orlando and the world,” she says.
After visiting New York City and Oklahoma City earlier this year, Poma established an advisory council and task force of survivors, family members and others touched by the tragedy to oversee the process. Her onePULSE Foundation will fund the effort. She will gather design ideas through an online survey and eventually will solicit bids from a designer.
“We have no idea how long it’s going to take,” she says. “We don’t know if it’s going to be one year or three years or five years. And I think putting a time on it is unrealistic, and it could create unnecessary stress for a lot of people, especially the families. Because since our process is starting within the one-year mark, some people aren’t ready yet.”
"It just gave us comfort knowing that we can do this. It's been done before. It can be done again" - Barbara Poma, owner of Pulse
Ken Foote, author of the book, “Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy,” says only within the last generation has there been a need to learn from these acts and honor the dead.
“These memorials for these horrible shootings and so forth are relatively new,” he says. “People seem to think we’ve always done this sort of thing, but the sense of shame that’s often attached to these events in the past made it very difficult for people to mark these events.”
Memorial Effort Forges Ahead, Without the City
Poma surprised everyone when she decided against selling to the city. Her husband Rosario Poma already had signed a contract. Among those most surprised was Mayor Buddy Dyer.
Negotiations had been underway for months, he said. The city’s primary interest was about protecting the property from a development that would have been insensitive, something like a convenience store. But City Commissioner Patty Sheehan believes the deal fell through because of anti-gay sentiment on the part of some commissioners.
“It’s probably better for her to do this as a private foundation because it would have been difficult for the city to work on a memorial if half of the commissioners are opposed to it,” she said.
Commissioner Jim Gray disagrees. He was one of two commissioners who opposed the deal. The other was Tony Ortiz. Gray said he felt the city’s offer was too high. Ortiz did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Dyer also had no comment.
Getting Started
Among the first memorial sites after the Pulse massacre was at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were among those who laid flowers here while the club remained a crime scene, a large area surrounding it closed off to all except authorities.
"It doesn't have to be a sad place. It doesn't have to be reflective. It doesn't have to be about remembrance. It doesn't have to be about hope. It doesn't have to be about love. It can be about any and/or all of those things" - Pam Schwartz, Orange County Regional History Center
A year later, the outpouring is gone from the performing arts center’s front lawn. That’s where I met Pam Schwartz of the Orange County Regional History Center. She led the history center’s pain-staking effort to collect and preserve memorial items here and at the club and now is part of an advisory council overseeing the Pulse memorial effort.
“If somebody is going there to seek comfort hopefully they will find it. If someone is going there even to be angry, hopefully that is somewhere they can go and find calm from their own individual storm,” she said.
“Some people may go to this not even for the Pulse nightclub shooting. They may go there as part of their own personal process of coming out as LGBTQ or whatever it is. These sites also morph over time. Over time they may become a lot of things to a lot of people.”
Mayra Alvear always knew she would be involved. Her 25-year-old daughter Amanda was among those slain at Pulse. Amanda chillingly Snapchatted the attack, sending around the world the fast-tempo percussive sounds of the gunman’s deadly fire.
“My daughter died there,” she says. “Why would I not be involved? She is my priority. Everything that has to do with my daughter, I be there. That’s my baby.”
I met Mayra on a warm afternoon at Lake Eola in downtown Orlando. A year ago, some 50,000 held vigil here, at dusk as a rainbow spread across the sky.
Mayra envisions a place of beauty and peace at Pulse, with trees.
“My daughter’s life was taken there, and so many others,” she says. “And somehow when I visit there, it’s just like the angels embrace me somehow. I feel their love. You know, it’s just a feeling I have, and I don’t want that feeling to go away.”
Back at Pulse, rainbows everywhere. On the wooden stars hanging like Christmas ornaments from a tree. On the pots of plants, each one painted red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
Rainbow flags. A thigh-high rainbow sculpture, beaded necklaces hanging from it. Rainbow-colored teddy bears, weathered by rain and sun.
There are photos, many photos, of Amanda and the others who were slain. Balloons. Candles. Flowers. Poetry. One poem reads, “We felt your pain all the way over in Australia. I was in Orlando this week. I wanted to come by and pay my respects.”
A year after 49 people were killed and more than 50 wounded, a memorial. For now.
Read the storiesand listen to the podcasts in English and Spanish prepared by our sister station WMFE for the anniversary of The Pulse shooting.
