The top of the central marble staircase leads into a smaller, more intimate cove called the Ceremonial Rotunda. On the right side of this area, you can find a bust memorializing slain Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the fictionalized historical characters in Nine Lives Last Forever.

From Nine Lives Last Forever, chapter 7:
"A bronze bust had been placed at the edge of the cove. The head and shoulders of a man with a prominent nose, wide elephant ears, and a broad humorous smile had been positioned so that he overlooked the designated location for City Hall's marriage ceremonies.

"...Thirty years after his death, Harvey Milk was still famous throughout San Francisco, not only for his politics - he was the city's first openly gay, elected official - but for the tragic way in which he died. Harvey Milk and the mayor of his time, George Moscone, were assassinated in City Hall by one of the other supervisors. The horrifying event had shaken the city to its core."

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