[laughter] no, she was fantastic. now, everyone, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our host, the 43rd mayor of the city and county of san been cisco, the honorable edwin m. lee -- the 43rd mayor of the city and county of san francisco. [applause] mayor lee: wow, welcome to city hall. and thank you, beach blanket babylon. what a wonderful performance. let's give her another hand. that was just fantastic. when i started being mayor of the city, i turned to our protocol officer and said, "you know, charlotte, we are going to do a lot of work this year, but these years forthcoming, as we work hard, i want to also have fun. isn't this fun?

all right. [applause] this is our 50th anniversary of the wonderful song, "i left my heart in san francisco." tony, it is wonderful for you to be here and grace us and honor us with your presence. your 17 grammys are just so unprecedented. you just won two more this past week, and what a wonderful career. congratulations, tony. i want to thank our school of the arts. i want to thank our boys and girls choruses. thank you. wonderful performances. it is a fitting tribute that our boys and girls choruses and ouryouth -- our yout are here today to perform because they reflect tony's dedicated career to ensure the future of arts

education. we have seen what he has done and seen what his support is, and he is encouraging youth to be leaders on and off the stage, to make sure they grow up with the values and the shared values that he has. this is such a wonderful opportunity. i also want to thank some of the school kids especially here today. we have kids from our tenderloin community school. thank you for being here. [applause] all right. we also have, for the first time, at the request of -- the idea ofcesa -- that cesar chavez elementary school wanted us to webcast this live, so we did it for them. wherever you are, welcome. [applause] tony, for 50 years, you have helped us not only remember a

great song, but whenever any of us leave our town, we always come back and call san francisco our home. i know we talked a little earlier and tried to recall that wonderful initiation where in 1961, you first sang that song in the venetian room up at the fairmont. little did you know at the time that then mayor george christopher was in the audience with joe alioto. it was such a marvelous performance that when joe became mayor, he adopted that as one of our two official anthems. thank you for performing first in san francisco. [applause] tony, you have helped us celebrate so many milestones in our city. you have helped us after earthquakes to come back and revive the spirit of our

wonderful city. you have designed the wonderful art pieces to raise funds for those who need that service. you help us to reopen. after earthquakes, you have helped us climb -- not half way, you have helped us climb all the way to the stars with the -- a nation of our cable cars. you have just -- i in your career, you have generated more love and more nostalgic for our bay area -- more nostalgia for our bay area than all the songs and all the movies and all the television shows associated with us combine. for that reason -- it is really for that reason, tony, that it is my pleasure if you would please come up, to declare today, valentine's day, february

14, 2012, as tony bennett day in san francisco. [applause] and also, on behalf of all of us and with all of our love and with all of our hearts together, to present to you the key to the city of san francisco. [applause] >> would you like to say a few

words? you have 45 minutes. [laughter] >> well, i would like to thank mr. ralph sharon, my great friend and musician, for finding this song. i was in little rock, arkansas, and we were on our way for the first time in my life. he found a song, and he said, "why don't we do this in san francisco?" i said ok, and i have no idea, but there was a bartender who said, cassette and i don't mean to interrupt your rehearsal, but if you record that song, i'm going to be the first customer -- "i don't mean to interrupt your rehearsal, but if you record that song, i'm going to

be the first customer." as i started singing it, the people came up and said, "you have to record the song immediately." i always thought it would be a local song in the area, but the fact that it has become such an international song throughout the world -- everybody loves it, and they love this city. it reminds me of one time when i was playing the fairmont hotel, gorbachev from russia with here and travel throughout the whole united states and in front of the company could tell, i was listening to him speak about san francisco. he said, "i traveled to every city in the united states, and i was disappointed with what i saw. there was not one city that i liked, but as far as i'm concerned, san francisco is so beautiful that i would like to

design 15 cities in russia that look like san francisco." [laughter] and he was right. [applause] my wonderful wife, my family is here. i'm thrilled. thank you very much. i must say -- excuse me, i have to mention one thing. i have never seen anything in my life as beautiful as these young people. [applause] you stand so beautiful. [applause] -- you sang so beautiful. [applause]

>> it is tony bennett day in san francisco. [applause] just fantastic. now, before we leave here today, just one more time, let's hear that special song one more time, now performed by the talented san francisco gay men's chorus, who will be joined by -- yes -- who will be joined by all of our performers here today and then all of you. you can sing along by following the lyrics on the screens. ladies and gentlemen, the san francisco gay men's chorus. [applause] ♪ >> ♪ the loveliness of paris seems some house sadly --

somehow sadly gay the glory that was rome is of another day i've been terribly alone and four got 10 -- forgotten in manhattan i'm going home to my city by the day -- city by the bay ♪ >> and now it is your turn. >> ♪ i left my heart in san francisco high on a hill

it calls to me to be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars in the morning fog may chill the air i don't care my love waits there in san francisco of of the blue and windy see -- above the blue and windy sea when i come home to you san francisco

your golden sun will shine for me ♪ [applause] >> very nice job, everybody. well, as we close here today, mr. bennett, you have always had the key to our hearts. now you have the key to our city. we hope to see you back here soon in your city by the bay. thank you for this wonderful

gift you have given us all these years and thank you so much for letting us honor you today. tony bennett day in san francisco. once again, for the man of the hour. [applause] thank you all so much for celebrating with us today. happy valentine's day. we will see you at the ballpark.

a hundred kids actively participating in our programming. it doesn't stop here, we're continuing the momentum and

continuing to grow. and like those students, we want to make sure that college becomes the rule and not the exception. so i want to thank everyone here who is gathered here today. and because of all you in the room, you have contributed time, resources, advocacy, energy, to make this dream a reality. so thank you all for coming. i want to introduce some -- everyone here is a v.i.p. and i thank people for coming. they are behind me. first of all, mayor lee, mayor of san francisco. please give him a round of applause. [applause] >> and supervisor malia cohen from district 10. thank you very much. who is doing an awesome job representing district 10. we want to make sure she is on board.

she's been a great supporter since she was elected to the board of supervisors so we thank you, again, supervisor cohen. with that, and one last person i want to introduce is randy lenit. randy is a graduate of college track oakland, a graduate of san francisco state university with a degree in civil engineering and randy was instrumentally involved in planning this entire building. you'll hear randy's story in a little while. round of applause for randy. and so with that, i would like to invite mayor lee up. thank you. mayor lee: thank you, omar. and thank you, everybody, for coming to college track. what a wonderful, wonderful name and a beautiful goal. you know, i don't know if you know this, during my college years i worked for this program called the upward bound program and i did that for about 3 1/2 years. during those years in the

1970's, it was about just persuading parents to let their kids try to get a college education. what we didn't know at the time, for, particularly, low-income kids, and kids from challenged neighborhoods, was there was a lot more than just persuasion at work. there was a lot of dissuasion going on with our kids, a lot of distractions. and over the years old, working with programs like college track and bridge to success, we learned a few things in partnership with our school district. rich caransaz is here today, in partnership with wonderful non-profits and our business and philanthropic communities, many are here to support this today, we learned there was more than just persuasion to be done. if you look at kids going through high school these days, if they're there, and if we're

preventing truancy, they're there sometimes alone. they're there with tremendous financial pressures, community pressures to do things other than seek success for themselves. and so we figured some of those things out and it led to needing to have a place for additional support to happen and there's where this wonderful program called college track has appeared with us. and i'm here today to signify the first success, because i know in june, the first class, although we started in 2007, the first class graduated this june and 100% of that class is going to college. isn't that wonderful? and did you know that 85% of that graduating class are kids that are first time going to college for their families, the

first in their families to do so. that's another great goal. [applause] as omar said earlier, there's a bunch of us that sometimes we're v.i.p.'s but i really think the v.i.p.'s today are the college track kids that are right here with the blue shirts. thank you very much for -- thank you very much for joining this wonderful, wonderful program. we're here today in this beautiful -- looks like a shell right now but if you see the designs, you'll see how wonderful this will be filled in. it's the additional 13,000 square feet that's going to more than double the number of kids that we'll reach out. and i want to especially thank someone who's been working alongside with me for many years and his leadership along with the redevelopment commission. i want to give a personal thanks i want to give a personal thanks to