SF streetcar to be dedicated to Harvey Milk

A rolling tribute to Harvey Milk will hit San Francisco streets Tuesday with the dedication of a classic streetcar named in honor of the slain supervisor and gay rights leader.

Municipal Railway Streetcar No. 1051, painted in the same green-and-cream color scheme that Muni used when Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, will have interior placards with photos and text detailing the life of Milk and his impact on San Francisco politics and the gay rights movement. Also noted will be his advocacy of public transit.

“He was pushing for a better Muni at a time when no one else really was in City Hall,” said Rick Laubscher, president of the Market Street Railway, the San Francisco Municipal Railway’s nonprofit partner in preserving the fleet of historic streetcars. “You either had benign neglect or antipathy. You didn’t really have a champion like Harvey Milk.”

Laubscher, a former television reporter who covered Milk, said the supervisor rode Muni daily between his homebase in the Castro and City Hall.

Milk served as supervisor less than a year when he was gunned down in his City Hall office on Nov. 27, 1978, by ex-Supervisor Dan White, who also assassinated Mayor George Moscone. Milk was the first openly gay politician elected to a major office in the United States.

The 60-year-old streetcar appeared in “Milk,” the movie about the supervisor’s life. The movie, which stars Sean Penn, has its world premiere at the Castro Theatre on Tuesday. City officials will dedicate the streetcar-turned-moving-memorial at an 11 a.m. ceremony at 17th and Castro streets.

SF streetcar to be dedicated to Harvey Milk San Francisco Chronicle