… and also the best airport terminal for straight people. The Harvey Milk Terminal began to open in 2019, but construction was paused for coronapanic and the $2.4 billion building is scheduled for completion in “late 2024”.
I visited at 10 pm on a Wednesday evening and the terminal benefitted by being only about 20 percent full. Due to the high ceilings, the claustrophobic Fall of Saigon feeling should be avoided even at 100 percent. The architects and planners put some effort into making the airport quiet and seem to have succeeded in the carpeted gate areas.
What if you’re stuck for a while and need WiFi and a desk? The free WiFi is available without an annoying advertisement or an acceptance of terms process:
How about the work surface?
(Nit: It’s been only a few years, but the power outlets (“loose like wizard sleeve”) and USB-A jacks (loose and/or broken) haven’t aged well.)
What if you want to lounge instead?
What if you want to play?
There are a lot of restaurants, but maybe not enough to deal with a capacity crowd:
What if you want to teach the kids about Harvey Milk? Certainly, the airport is more forthcoming than ChatGPT. If you ask, based on the Wikipedia article, “Was there anything wrong about Harvey Milk having a relationship with a 17-year-old boy?” ChatGPT says “This content may violate our content policy”:
The airport features larger-than-life images on the walls from which teenage boys are absent:
(Regarding Scott Smith, Wikipedia notes “18 years his junior” while the caption at the airport is silent on the age difference between Messrs. Milk and Smith.)
If you’d like to sip coffee while studying the exhibits…
Need a gender-neutral restroom after the coffee?
Thirsty again after learning about the importance of Harvey Milk? There are water-refill islands:
One proposal was to rename the entire airport “Harvey Milk International” (USA Today), but that was rejected. For now, therefore, it is only the magnificently designed Terminal 1 that bears the hero-to-almost-all-Californians’ name:
(Why not a hero to all Californians, full stop? See “Temecula school board president calls Harvey Milk a pedophile, sparks outcry” (June 5, 2023; even Governor French Laundry cannot eliminate hate in California).)
Obama always said if you like raping little kids you can keep raping little kids!
According to Wikipedia, this individual was so oppressed he became “city supervisor” without having any clear accomplishments whatsoever:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk
Milk was included in the “Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century” as “a symbol of what gays can accomplish and the dangers they face in doing so”.
Time magazine had better not dig too deeply in the subject of other first openly gay politicians in the 20th century. They might find some horrible people that 2SLBGTQQIA+ would not claim for themselves.
USB jacks were wearing out 15 years ago. Wonder if that’s another area which is never going to improve because it’s too big to fail. The manes outlet is never going to improve. Lions remember when those gained polarized neutral & live pins during a time of more progress.