96-98 Bradford Street, AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod, by David W. Dunlap (2008).
Detail of Provincetown AIDS Support Group sign, 96-98 Bradford Street, courtesy of Bill Furdon.
Less than a decade and a half after its first appearance in town in 1982, AIDS had claimed more than 385 lives, one-tenth of the permanent population, Jeanne Braham and Pamela Peterson wrote in Starry, Starry Night. By then, the Provincetown AIDS Support Group had established its front-line quarters in the Queen Anne-style Odd Fellows Hall, used from 1895 to 1955 by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, one of whose missions was visiting and caring for the sick. PASG was founded in 1983 by Alice Foley, the town nurse; Preston Babbitt, proprietor of the Rose & Crown; and others. Its services include case management, transportation assistance, food and nutrition programs, H.I.V. prevention and screening, and housing. By merger in 2001, it became the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod. Foley died in 2009; Babbitt in 1990, of AIDS.
Building Provincetown 