‘Massacre’ nightclub to become museum
Print Edition
THE Pulse nightclub in Florida, where 49 people died in an attack last year by a gunman who swore fealty to the Islamic State group, is to become a museum, its owner has announced.
A landmark for the gay community in Orlando, Florida, the club will serve as a memorial and museum to help comfort those who lost someone in the attack, and promote tolerance, Barbara Poma told a news conference.
“It is a time for Pulse to contribute to the community in a permanent way,” she said. “It is now sacred ground.”
The club was the site of the worst act of mass murder in the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks. It took place on June 12, 2016, committed by an American man born in New York state to Afghan parents, Omar Mateen.
Opening fire with two semi-automatic weapons, he killed 49 people, most of them Puerto Ricans, and wounded 68. After he took hostages, police stormed the nightclub and killed him.
Mateen, 29, declared his loyalty to the Islamic State just before the shooting.
Pulse has remained boarded shut since the attack, becoming an informal memorial for the victims, where visitors leave candles and artworks outside the black building.
Poma did not give details about the museum to be established.
She said it would be overseen by the OnePULSE Foundation she set up after the massacre.
Planning is still in the initial phases, with the foundation seeking input from victims’ families and survivors, as well as police, fire and paramedic crews who were there that night.
Poma had wanted to sell Pulse last year but changed her mind because of her emotional attachment to the place, started in memory of a brother who died of HIV/AIDS.
“Pulse will become a place of healing,” she said. “We will not let hate win, we will heal together.”
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