It stretched almost the length of a skyscraper: a burgundy banner with 17 soaring eagles, each one representing the lives lost in the Parkland school massacre.
Flanking it were several other signs, all of them memorializing the victims of the school shooting.
They were all on display Tuesday in New York’s Times Square, one of the busiest streets in the world.
They were meant to serve as a reminder that the deadly Valentine’s Day school shooting was very much still on the minds of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School alumni.
The idea for the project came from alum Stacey Goldman. She said she was inspired to do something after she saw how her community came together after the shooting.
“The politics involved makes me angry of course, but I haven’t gotten very involved in that besides signing petitions and donating,” Goldman told CNN. “I just couldn’t move past the heartache.”
She knew she wanted to do something to show her support even if she was across the country.
“I couldn’t watch a video or read an article without crying,” she said. “I’m a mother, and my heart hurt for their parents.”
Once she decided on her idea, she knew exactly who she needed to talk to.
Her best friend’s husband works at Big Sign Message, which manages several billboards in Times Square.
Goldman just wanted to buy a few seconds on one board. Instead, the company offered to put the message on all boards, multiple times an hour for 24 hours.
Another alum, Shane Fedderman, connected with Goldman to design the memorial.
Fedderman knew how important it was to have the victim’s names displayed, and he wanted the memorial to be real and big. Burgundy was chosen because it’s the school color.
“The whole point is to keep this in the forefront of our minds, emblazoned everywhere, leaving no choice but to make real changes,” he said.
The display started Tuesday at midnight and ended on midnight the following day.
“I wanted to let the survivors and parents of the victims know that we are still thinking of their friends,” Goldman said. “And that we won’t forget them.”