The Memorial Peace Garden at the Howard Brown Health Center, 4025 N. Sheridan, has now seen two crimes in less than a month. Just one week after a stolen statue dedicated to lesbian health advocate Mary York was returned to the garden, a second statue in memory of fellow activist Lisa Tonna was found destroyed July 14.
The small but heavy Buddha statue had been wobbled back and forth in an attempt to rip it from its cement base and was likely dropped, said Cat Jefcoat, director of Howard Brown's Lesbian Community Care Project. Part of the statue's head was shattered. It had had been rubbed with some of Tonna's ashes.
The vandalism occurred just one week after the garden's other statue, a small replica of the Bird Girl from the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was returned after going missing on June 21. Tonna's and York's partners donated both statues to complement the peace garden, which Howard Brown planted in the women's memory in June 2008.
The garden, located at the corner of Sheridan Road and Cuyler Street in Uptown, is open to the public, and Jefcoat says it will remain that way, even if it means not putting the statues back in place.
"We want to have people spending time there finding peace," she said. "It's too bad we have to be more street-wise."
Jefcoat said she will consult with Tonna's and York's partners before deciding what to do with the statues, as well as determining more creative and safer alternatives for memorializing the two activists in the garden.
"The most important piece is that we continue to hold that peace garden in honor of Lisa and Mary," she said.
Both Tonna and York died of cancer in January 2008 after devoting their careers to making a difference in the LGBT community. Tonna served as interim director of the Lesbian Community Care Project, which focuses on LBTI women's health issues. She also fought for smoke-free initiatives and managed the Center on Halsted's Anti-Violence Project.