Broadway to Dim Lights Tomorrow Night 12/1 for World AIDS Day

The Broadway community will be included with participating venues across the city to commemorate World AIDS Day, December 1, 2009. The marquees of Broadway theaters in New York will be dimmed on Tuesday, December 1st, at exactly 8:00pm for one minute.

In addition to Broadway theaters, participating venues across the city include the Brooklyn Bridge, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Chrysler Building, Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theatre and the Washington Square Park Memorial Arch.

A roster of notable guests, including United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and actress and UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador Naomi Watts, will kick off the global Light for Rights campaign in New York City on World AIDS Day-Tuesday, December 1, 2009-as lights on numerous landmarks all over the city will be turned off to remember those lost to AIDS and turned back on to emphasize human rights for those living with HIV/AIDS around the world.

The global initiative, organized by UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS); amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research; Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS; and the World AIDS Campaign, will showcase the importance of fundamental human rights as citizens and organizations around the world fight AIDS.

The New York anchor event will begin at 6:00 p.m. in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, where the Secretary-General and Naomi Watts will be joined by Kenneth Cole, chairman, Kenneth Cole Productions and chairman of the board, amfAR; New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn; and 13-year-old Honduran AIDS activist Keren Dunaway-Gonzalez, who is living with HIV.

During the event, at 6:15 p.m., the lights on the Washington Square Park Memorial Arch will be turned off and then re-illuminated as the speakers talk about the importance of human rights when confronting the AIDS pandemic.