Pulse | 2019

In December 2019, workers carefully removed the iconic "Pulse" sign from the marquee. It was placed in storage, awaiting a future museum display. For a moment, the street looked like any other strip of South Orange Avenue.

Furthermore, 2019 saw the resurgence of the "Latinx" identity in the discourse. While early media coverage focused on the "gay club," many overlooked that the club was hosting Latin Night —meaning the majority of the victims were queer Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans. In 2019, community organizers began explicitly correcting the record, holding vigils in Spanish and pushing for intersectional gun reform. Perhaps the most haunting statistic to emerge from 2019 was the echo effect. According to a study published by the American Journal of Public Health that year, survivors of the Pulse shooting experienced PTSD at rates similar to combat veterans. But more alarmingly, researchers found that the shooting had a "contagion effect" on the mental health of LGBTQ+ people across the state. pulse 2019

"It’s hard to see blueprints for a garden where I thought I was going to die," Carter told the Orlando Sentinel in July 2019. "But if we don't build something there, they win. The hate wins." Nationally, 2019 marked a critical pivot in the conversation about the Pulse shooting. For two years following the tragedy, the "Orlando nightclub shooting" was often framed primarily as terrorism (the shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS) or gun violence. By 2019, the narrative had sharpened. In December 2019, workers carefully removed the iconic

ORLANDO, Fla. – In the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, the Pulse nightclub was a sanctuary. By sunrise, it was a crime scene. Three years later, in the summer of 2019, the site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history (at the time) existed in a complex limbo—no longer an active nightclub, not yet a finished memorial, but a sacred, quiet space where grief and activism converged. Furthermore, 2019 saw the resurgence of the "Latinx"

But in 2019, the fences remained, but the purpose had shifted. The onePULSE Foundation had purchased the property earlier that year for $2.45 million, officially severing the site from its commercial past. In June 2019, on the third anniversary, the foundation unveiled the final design concepts for a permanent memorial and museum, designed by the renowned firm MASS Design Group.

That year, the U.S. government finally added the Pulse shooting to the FBI’s list of hate crime investigations. While the shooter had been killed, the designation allowed the Bureau to study the attack as a targeted act of homophobia.