♪ >> in 1986, my son was two, and i decided i would like to go over the story of the velveteen rabbit, mind you i had never read it myself as a child. i only heard it as a mother. my first-time hearing it was a bedtime story recording. it was through that that i found the theme and determined how it was going to produce this story. it was through listening to it. when a first mated, i really did watch my son, because i took him to live performances as soon as six months old. he loved it when someone was on the stage. he loved it when somebody was reading to him, the language.

>> there was once a velveteen rabbit. >> usually when the bunny first comes out ago, ah, the rabbit. i think kids can relate to it. and they built love nana. nana is the man at all figure in the show, and she represents stern love. the ferry is also played by the same person. -- the fairy is played by the same person. it is like the love you have for your first child. pure love. >> i think nature is a beautiful thing. all the wild rabbits come from nature. i like that. i think nature is mysterious, a beautiful, and not something our kids get very much these days.

♪ >> there is fantastical spectacle these days because of computers and films. i feel that in a live performance, being pared down, you can be more successful you can ask everybody to buy into the world you're in. if it is a simple world, they will buy into it, as long as the world is consistent that you have onstage. in some ways, i also want that message for kids. the world does not have to be spectacle. the world can be about relationships, how you feel, and having fun and taking them seriously. and not about being blown away. >> what is real, asked the rabbit one day. >> it is a thing that happens to

you when a child loves you for a long, long time. >> i think it is a success because, for the most part, if you are 3 or 7 years old, you sit in the sea, and the kids are engaged. they laugh and ask questions but that is part of the success. i think the fact that we tour and do it here and still have audiences says it is a lasting. i really want to say that it is lasting is because of the story is a gentle story. if it was just ok, it would not have lasted this long. i have had people come up to me and say that was the first dance show i ever saw and that is why i am a choreographer today. i have had people come back after being in the shows and come back to see it when they're 20 and 23 years old.

little kids and people in their 50s and 60s tell me how much they love it. and they come back more than once, year after year. ♪ software version: 3.0c ++ >> thank you all for joining our wonderful san francisco symphony. and of course, what with the mayor do without issuing the official proclamation? on behalf of our great city, i would love to present in honor of not only the 100 years, but the grammys, oscars, the wonderful quality of work that

the symphony has been involved in, to honor them on this day, to resign from our protocol officer the official proclamation presented to michael. declaring this to be san francisco symphony in day in san francisco. [applause] free parking is what he asked for. of all things. and of course, with this opportunity that we could not pass up, where would a 100-share birthday bash the without the official birthday song? i'm going to ask liang-liang to get on the piano. and i'm going to have ask all of you to sing in your loudest voice. he would like to have his friends in china hear this.

let's go with have a birthday, everybody. [applause]

>> we came to seven straight about 10 years ago. -- 7th street about 10 years ago. the environment is huge. it is stronger than willpower. surrounding yourself with artists, being in a culture where artists are driving, and where a huge amount of them is a healthy environment. >> you are making it safer. push, push. that is better. when i start thinking, i see it

actually -- sometimes, i do not see it, but when i do, it is usually from the inside out. it is like watching something being spawned. you go in, and you begin to work, excavate, play with the dancers, and then things began to emerge. you may have a plan that this is what i want to create. here are the ideas i want to play with, but then, you go into the room, and there maybe some fertile ideas that are becoming manifest that are more interesting than the idea you had initially set out to plan. so there has to be this openness for spontaneity. also, a sense that regardless of the deadline, that you have tons of time so the you can keep your creativity alive and not cut it off and just go into old habits. it is a lot like listening. really listening to watch what

is going to emerge. i like this thing where you put your foot on his back. let's keep it. were your mind is is how you build your life. if you put it in steel or in failure, it works. that works. it is a commitment. for most artists, it is a vacation and a life that they have committed themselves to. there is this notion that artists continue to do their work because of some kind of the external financial support. if that was taken away, artists would still do their art. it is not like there is a prerequisite for these things to happen or i will not do it. how could that be? it is the relationship that you have committed to. it is the vocation. no matter how difficult it gets,

you are going to need to produce your art. whether it is a large scale or very small scale. the need to create is going to happen, and you are going to have to fulfill it because that is your life. >> i'm susan buckbinder. i'm the director of the h.i.v. research section and of the sore project. on behalf of the entire project and the entire team which is large, i want to welcome you

all to our ground-breaking ceremony and just give you a little bit of background on the aids office itself and the reason for the soar project. the aids office is really a unique research institution. in addition to the care that's provided and the resources that are given to the community to care for, to prevent and care for people with h.i.v. infection, we really are the only health department that is leading the h.i.v. prevention and surveillance effort. the kind of research that we do is done primarily through universities, so we're in a unique position. we have three research organizations houses within the aids office. there is the h.i.v. epidemiology unit that is headed by dr. seussan sheer and willie mcfarland. they really are the premiere surveillance group for h.i.v. and aids in the country that train many other groups

globally about how to track h.i.v. infections and h.i.v.-related disease, so that we can know how best to target our prevention efforts and our treatment efforts. so they have really done a huge service to the global h.i.v. aids community and also in addressing health disparities. the h.i.v. prevention unit is headed by dr. grant koufax. they also are really a ground-breaking research organization as well as providing prevention services and leading the presense efforts in the city. they have really spearheaded this effort at looking at how treatment can effect prevention, how if you get people tested and treated more globally, you can really drive down h.i.v. infection. and so through that, they have pioneered on viral load and h.i.v. testing, in treatment of substance use and a variety of

other topics. and then i head the h.i.v. research section and we have a number of talented folks who work with me. we're test age number of different kind of prevention interventions including h.i.v. vaccines, preexposure prophylaxis which is using h.i.v. medication to prevent new infections, reaching out to the african-american community to understand what is driving the epidemic particularly in that community and using peer health navigation to connect them with services, combination prevention intersenses and so forth. in the last year, we have had a couple of major breakthroughs in both a new h.i.v. vaccine that seems to be providing partial protection and we are understanding how that is working and preventing new infections. the entire aids office has come together to work collaboratively to address the epidemic. now, we were challenged in that we are based in a health department and so we don't have

the resources to build buildings and to renovate buildings because we're largely grant funded. one of our employees, janey vincent, saw a -- [applause] >> saw that there were federal stimulus funds that we could apply for to renovate our building. we needed to work together more collaboratively. teams were split up on different floors and there wasn't good meeting space to work cross teams. we needed more clinical space to see our study volunteers and we needed more community space to bring community into what we do. under barbara garcia's leadership, we came together and put in this grant and it's the first time that the federal government, n.i.h., has awarded this kind of money to a health department. they've only awarded this kind

of research money to universities so it's really through the joint efforts under barbara's leadership that we've been able to move forward and it's really through the support of the city government through the mayor, through our supervisors, through the health commission, that we've moved this field forward so without further ado, i want to introduce the honorable mayor lee. [applause] mayor lee: thank you, everybody, for coming this morning, and dr. buchbinder and barbara and the commissioners, congratulations. these days it is so difficult to land federal grants, so matter where they're from and it only takes the dedication that you've identified, the people who worked on this very hard to put together a grant specific to modernize our aids research office and it's absolutely needed. i remember in the early 1980's where we joined three major

cities of the country, this city and new york and los angeles, where the initial aids research got started and we are concentrated in our areas but we understood that this epidemic had to be studied further to make sure we were on the right track to discover not only breakthroughs but prevention ideas that would be directed at curtailing this epidemic. so you fast forward the 25, 30 years since that time, and we need more of that research done so i am glad this money was identified. it's going to be very helpful. the $9.5 million of aid from the national institute of health. this is almost miraculous. you don't see these grants very often to public agencies unless we are doing the absolutely necessary thing, and that is focused on improving and making sure we make great breakthroughs and we are going to be able to do that with this additional

space. this money will go towards additional 8,000 square feet on top of renovating another 9,000. so it's a total focused on the 17,000 square feet of space that is in different floors of this building, making sure they're connected up and that we have additional physician space, counseling offices and examination rooms as well as research space. that's invaluable. i want to put on my d.p.w. hat for a moment, as well, because d.p.h. doesn't work if a vacuum. when they identify this, they work with everybody. i want to thank supervisor wiener for coming here today, too, because he knows how important it is for that collaboration to occur. so d.p.h. working in this facility -- and by the way, i need you to know that probably the last time i was standing here was having barbecue when it

was a barbecue restaurant here and i was at the top floor, at rooftop hall, heading up the human rights commission and we were already working in concert with the aids office to prevent discrimination against people with aids and i recall those meetings because it was so important to make sure those people weren't discriminated against as they tried to survive and find help in this wonderful city that we have. public works, you're amazing, you working with our real estate department in finding ways to make sure we have the best approach to this and we are also working with our private contractors. i know turner construction is doing the construction management here, working closely with our bureau of architecture and engineering to make sure this is done on time, within budget. that's the mantra of using federal funds these days. you better be on time. better be on budget. and we also better make sure that when we do this, we reach

out to our local vendors and make sure they're participating in this economic times, struggling. we have a 25% goal to do this correctly. so this renovation is important for all of those different levels but the most important thing is that we have more modern offices for our aids epidemic research. because i know, i know that in our lifetimes, barbara, we're going to find fantastic breakthroughs with your leadership, the leadership of the commission and the wonderful staff that you have that is focused on ending this epidemic and making sure people not only get the resources that they have but that they also know that this is the city of hope, that we're going to continue doing what is necessary to make sure that we end this epidemic and to provide cures for people around the world. it isn't just for san francisco any longer. we know the disease knows no boundaries so the discoveries that we will make here, the

prevention ideas that will educate more and more people about safe practices, safe lifestyle, and the discoveries that we have in finding the appropriate drugs, will happen as a result of this effort here. and so i want to thank everybody for working together, and i want to thank mark primo, as well, and his private consulting capacity, that he's been able to take a look at the physical things that we can do to ensure that the research goes on, and i want to celebrate this day and get ready to knock down these walls and make sure that we provide the space that we have. thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> i'd next like to introduce supervisor scott wiener. supervisor wiener: thank you, thank you. i thank both of my constituents,

dr. buchbinder and mayor lee. i have the honor of representing the castro, among other neighborhoods, and as you know the castro is arguably the hardest hit neighborhood in the country in terms of this epidemic so i feel a special responsibility to always thereby and make sure that our city does what it needs to do to beat this disease. and i know that our department of health has done such a tremendous job in terms of the services that it provides to our city, to our community, to make sure that people have access to prevention resources, to treatment resources, and i know they will always be there and this project will increase the effectiveness of our city government in terms of consolidating services, having people together and working

collaboratively. so i'm really excited about that. also, in addition to all the great work that the office of aids and d.p.h. do in san francisco, it's a reminder to the world, the international leadership role this department plays in terms of fighting hiv/aids and i was reminded of this a few weeks ago when i was sponsoring a grant acceptance for the department for some international work and i got a call from a reporter about why are you sponsoring, you know, something relating to kazakhstan, and it was actually a great opportunity because we got to educate this reporter about what this department does and how this is an international epidemic and how people around the world look to san francisco for leadership and expertise in fighting hiv/aids and the reporter said to me afterwards, wow, i had no idea how much brilliance is in this department. so this is an exciting

department and i want to congratulate everyone. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, supervisor wiener, for your ongoing support. i'm next going to introduce our director of public health, barbara garcia. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. i am so honored and i'm so proud of the department's staff. i get a lot of travel requests and it's to peru and mozambique and tanzania and at the bottom it says how much it costs and it's usually zero and those are the ones i like to sign but it really does. and i want to just acknowledge the d.p.h. aids office staff, please raise your hands, because you clearly -- [applause] >> some of you, in culmination of years, i know you have hundreds of years of experience here and i know that is so, so important and we've done some incredible work in san francisco and you've taken your work and

your understanding of this disease to other parts of the world and it makes such a big difference for everyone in the world, particularly around ending this disease. you're doing aids planning and my job as the principal investigator is to help with space planning. this is a 100-year-old building and we were in all kinds of spaces and i want to acknowledge the staff that helped and figured out how to move people and how to construct behind them. mark primo and martine soto -- raise your hand, martine. he's been my negotiator whenever people are trying to figure out what the next space process is going to be. i also would like to recognize the department of public works. i believe we have representative. the real estate division, john updike. the 25 van ness real estate

team, leslie, jerrold and john updike. one of the things that we're looking at is how to bring this to the 21st century in technology, where, also, we're going to have a large conference room. i believe it's going to fit about 150 people, and that will be able to bring community people in, but it's also going to be an advantageous one for us. we're talking about telemedicine so we can speak to other parts of the world in terms of our work. so the department of technology. do we have representatives? all right, great. and our own san francisco department of information technology unit, do we have our staff here? and turner construction. what could we do without a construction company. so -- [applause] again, i wanted to thank all our staff but also it's really important to acknowledge the role of our commission who continue to support our efforts,

and this effort. i wanted to introduce steve cherney. >> i just want to take a second to congratulate everyone. i had the pleasure to work in this 100-year-old building for a while. the exciting thing about san francisco is when the c.d.s. and hearsa said we want to cut new hiv infections by 10%, san francisco said, no, 50%. when they said we'd like to get folks in line with undetectable environmental load, susan and the rest of the team said, no, that won't do, we need everybody in undetectable environmental load and they said if we do that, we can cut down on care dollars and we said, no, folks living with hiv in san francisco across each community will receive the highest quality care possible and that commitment is demonstrated again over and over again and the awarding of this grant and the mayor coming to tell us that he supports these

efforts in the strongest possible way and will over the next administration is just news that's important for everybody in the community. so we're proud to be here and i can't wait to see who hits that wall with that hammer. and begins the good work. congratulations, everyone. [applause] >> i think, with that, we're going to begin our ground breaking and i think our mayor has the opportunity for the first swing. mayor lee: are we ready? ok! [applause]