Due to remarkable advances in biological research and increasing sophistication of disease surveillance systems, the appearance of AIDS in the U.S. was swiftly recognized, and knowledge about the clinical characteristics of the illness, the causal agent, its means of transmission, and logical means for its control were developed with impressive speed. AIDS first developed in homosexual men, a group commonly evoking strong negative feelings in the larger heterosexual society, and IV drug users who were usually poor, black, or Hispanic. Slow and reluctant public response to the disease was based on the way the media presented AIDS, the initial response in the homosexual community, the behavior of certain opinion makers, and the focal and circumscribed geographic nature of the epidemic. The first signs of social and political response to AIDS were the Report of the President's Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic, the steady increase in funding for AIDS, the passing of a model confidentiality bill in New York, and public education on the transmission of AIDS. The history of AIDS in New York City is documented and discussed. 20 notes.