>> there has been an acknowledgement of the special places around san francisco bay. well, there is something sort of innate in human beings, i think, that tend to recognize a good spot when you see it, a spot that takes your breath away. this is one of them. >> an icon of the new deal. >> we stood here a week ago and we heard all of these dignitaries talk about the

symbol that coit tower is for san francisco. it's interesting for those of us in the pioneer park project is trying to make the point that not only the tower, not only this man-built edifice here is a symbol of the city but also the green space on which it sits and the hill to which is rests. to understand them, you have to understand the topography of san francisco. early days of the city, the city grows up in what is the financial district on the edge of chinatown. everything they rely on for existence is the golden gate. it's of massive importance to the people what comes in and out of san francisco bay. they can't see it where they are. they get the idea to build a giant wooden structure. the years that it was up here, it gave the name telegraph hill. it survived although the structure is long gone. come to the 1870's and the city

has growed up remarkably. it's fueled with money from the nevada silver mines and the gold rush. it's trying to be the paris of the west. now the beach is the suburbs, the we will their people lived on the bottom and the poorest people lived on the top because it was very hard getting to the top of telegraph hill. it was mostly lean-to sharks and bits of pieces of houses up here in the beginning. and a group of 20 businessmen decided that it would be better if the top of the hill remained for the public. so they put their money down and they bought four lots at the top of the hill and they gave them to the city. lily hitchcock coit died without leaving a specific use for her bequest. she left a third of her estate for the beautify indication of the city. arthur brown, noted architect in the city, wanted for a while to build a tower. he had become very interested in persian towers.

it was the 1930's. it was all about machinery and sort of this amazing architecture, very powerful architecture. he convinced the rec park commission that building a tower in her memory would be the thing to do with her money. >> it was going to be a wonderful observation place because it was one of the highest hills in the city anywhere and that that was the whole reason why it was built that high and had the elevator access immediately from the beginning as part of its features. >> my fear's studio was just down the street steps. we were in a very small apartment and that was our backyard. when they were preparing the site for the coit tower, there was always a lot of harping and griping about how awful progress was and why they would choose this beautiful pristine area to do them in was a big

question. as soon as the coit tower was getting finished and someone put in the idea that it should be used for art, then, all of a sudden, he was excited about the coit tower. it became almost like a daily destination for him to enjoy the atmosphere no matter what the politics, that wasn't the point. as long as they fit in and did their work and did their own creative expression, that was all that was required. they turned in their drawings. the drawings were accepted. if they snuck something in, well, there weren't going to be any stoolies around. they made such careful little diagrams of every possible little thing about it as though

that was just so important and that they were just the big frog. and, actually, no one ever felt that way about them and they weren't considered something like that. in later life when people would approach me and say, well, what did you know about it? we were with him almost every day and his children, we grew up together and we didn't think of him as a commie and also the same with the other. he was just a family man doing normal things. no one thought anything of what he was doing. some of them were much more highly trained. it shows, in my estimation, in the murals. this was one of the masterpieces. families at home was a lot more

close to the life that i can remember that we lived. murals on the upper floors like the children playing on the swings and i think the little deer in the forest where you could come and see them in the woods and the sports that were always available, i think it did express the best part of our lives. things that weren't costing money to do, you would go to a picnic on the beach or you would do something in the woods. my favorite of all is in the staircase. it's almost a miracle masterpiece how he could manage to not only fit everyone, of course, a lot of them i recognized from my childhood -- it's how he juxtaposed and managed to kind of climb up that stairway on either side

very much like you are walking down a street. it was incredible to do that and to me, that is what depicted the life of the times in san francisco. i even like the ones that show the industrial areas, the once with the workers showing them in the cannery and i can remember going in there and seeing these women with the caps, with the nets shuffling these cans through. my parents had a ranch in santa rosa and we went there all summer. i could see these people leaning over and checking. it looked exactly like the beautiful things about the ranch. i think he was pretty much in the never look back philosophy about the coit. i don't think he ever went to visit again after we moved from telegraph hill, which was only

five or six years later. i don't think he ever had to see it when the initials are scratched into everything and people had literally destroyed the lower half of everything. >> well, in my view, the tower had been pretty much neglected from the 1930's up until the 1980's. it wasn't until then that really enough people began to be alarmed about the condition of the murals, the tower was leaking. some of the murals suffered wear damage. we really began to organize getting funding through the arts commission and various other sources to restore the murals. they don't have that connection or thread or maintain that connection to your history and your past, what do you have? that's one of the major elements of what makes quality of life in san francisco so incredible.

when people ask me, and they ask me all the time, how do you get to coit tower, i say you walk. that's the best way to experience the gradual elevation coming up above the hustle and bustle of the city and finding this sort of oasis, if you will, at the top of the hill. when i walk through this park, i look at these brick walls and this lawn, i look at the railings around the murals. i look at the restoration and i think, yeah, i had something to do with that. learning the lessons, thank you, landmarks meet landmarks. the current situation at pioneer park and coit tower is really based in public and private partnership. it was the citizens who came together to buy the land to keep it from being developed.

it was lily hitchcock coit to give money to the city to beautify the city she loved of the park project worked to develop this south side and still that's the basis of our future project to address the north side. >> san francisco recreation and parks department for hosting us here today. i am the president and ceo of recology. we're here to celebrate another environmental success for the city of san francisco. in 1996, we began taking food waste and trying to figure out what to do with it and realized we could composted. we begin a collection program

on a pilot basis in 1997, but by about 2006 or so that program was then offered to every resident, every business in the city. we are now taking about 600 tons a day of organic matter and turning it into compost. it is a program that everyone in the city has participated in. if you have never put anything in a green bin. every restaurant, business, resident, and school all have participated. we met at their restaurant at fisherman's wharf last november to acknowledge that we had collected 1 million tons of organic matter that could be composted, and now today we have returned the product of that 1 million tons here to how many farms that can be used to provide nutrients to the soil here, to russia -- to promote organic farming, promote

sustainable agriculture, and to teach people in this community how we can produce high-quality foods from material that we all throw away. we are proud to have that success today. we're going to have a thank you event for the citizens of san francisco on saturday at this and three other locations. it is a bring your own bucket event. everybody who comes with their own bucket is going to be a big of, for free, 5 gallons of compost that has come from material that we generate, organic material we generate here in san francisco. we're looking forward to that event. i do want to acknowledge some of our supporters and partners on this program better here today. the director of public works. a member from supervisor campo'' office. the executive chef and purchaser for the restaurant. scott with a good laugh

groceries. -- good life groceries. one of our customers for this compost from a vineyard. the zero waste manager for the state of san francisco. and jason," manager here of the farm. last but most of parliament, -- most important, mayor lee, mayor of the greenest city. cuyahoga [applause] >> thank you. i cannot imagine a better way to celebrate the 1 million ton of compost in the city that has been collected by our official waste management company recology and celebrate that with a giveaway of this very rich soil that can be used and some many community gardens, people's private patches, farms like this that jason has been stored in with us -- this is a beautiful

farm, by the way. congratulations. mohamed and i have been out here for years when running public works. you know, sometimes we referred to it is in the less than a real farme. for some years that had been neglected, kind of a dumping area. weeds were growing up. thanks to jason and so many volunteers and to the collaboration he has had with residents of our public housing just next door, they have really gotten a great culture going. certainly with the collaboration with our recreation at the park department which actually owns the land here. they have been a great supporter of this revitalization of a very precious farm in this area of the city. i know supervisor campos and sheila are very appreciative of this because it has not only been taken care of well, it has been used appropriately to educate people and to give them a vision of what a beautiful

gardens are, but growing fresh crops and vegetables could be like, and how that can be replicated with the hundreds of community gardens we have in this city. this keeps piling up with rec and a park, the department of environment, of people that want to continue this great effort of the city to build more parks, more planting areas, more urban farms. as we have encouraged -- i know supervisor david chiu and eric mar join me last year in the urban agriculture ordinance to allow less bureaucracy in the creation of community gardens and farms throughout the whole city and utilizing empty space that would go with it and then at neutralizing, offering them a very rich soil to really create good farmland. and then dpw came and started their collaboration with the department of environment,

really allowing private property owners who had orchards in their backyards, fruit trees, vegetable gardens to actually, if they were not using and, to be able to donate it to food shelters and other areas where people could have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. we're doing all the right things. and there is a reason why we have someone named robert haley as the zero based manager. we made a commitment a while back, one i personally embraced, and that is why i want to keep robert close to me all the time. we're 78% there, but that is not good enough. right? not good enough for the department of environment, not good enough for recology, not good enough for jason and his crew, not good enough for the supervisors, and not good enough for the mayor. we want a city that all the diversity in the country, if not the world, to go to 100% recycled, 100% no waste.

and we're not going to waste time in getting to that goal. because it is a goal that i think generations, my kids, generations after us will always ask me -- when you were mayor, what did you really do to help our environment? how did you reduce those emissions? when we know that we're taking compost and we're taking it out of the landfill, significantly reducing the is very harmful emissions that end up being called nothing, that is your harmful to our at missile. when we can reduce that from our landfills, when we can really recycle as much as we can, going to 100%. reducing even further our use for landfills at all in this city, we will have done generations for our kids to come a great, great service, a great vision of what san francisco will have done while we were at

the storage shed here. so i will be dependent upon everybody behind me to work even harder these next few years, to really get those programs out there and collaborate with all of our communities, with public housing residents, with every neighborhood, with our stores, our restaurants, and our local residents here to all join in on this great effort. because the result of it is the greater city and a more caring city, a city that is going to be not just greener, but it will be one that will be healthier for everybody. and that is the attraction of san francisco. people all over the world come to san francisco not only for its innovations but for its reflection of care it has with the environment. that is what distinguishes our city from some many others. so happy to have a lively department of the environment that works with everybody to make sure we are reaching out to all of the different cultures that come here and establish

themselves here. there is no cultural barrier when it comes to caring for our environment and caring for the world. we have to have the same language, the same attitude that we care about all of our communities, and we have to get everybody involved. no matter what economic scale their act, no one should be left out of this great goal that we have for the city, to be a city for everybody. and fresh fruits and vegetables are health in terms of our own bodies and our communities and in terms of the health in this of our city. it needs to be reflected in everything we do. so the greatest restaurants that we have here and the greatest food servers that we have here are going to be a part of this as well, because they know that with the richness of the compost that we have, that they are giving back with their food scraps, that contributes to the richness of the soil. to have more people use that, as they will. as my wife well. she has been asking me, mike --

when are those three days of picking up compost going to happen again? i of the come post by giving it away for free at four locations this saturday, one right here in the heart of here, but we spread it out to the rest of the part of the city, have great locations and we have here i'm sure a document here and a website as to where the other locations are. happy million tons, mike, but also a great thanks to everybody for doing a wonderful job and working with us, great stewardship here, again jason and congratulations to everybody in joining this collaborative effort, thank you very much. [applause] >> good morning, everybody. my name is sheila chun hagen. i'm here representing supervisor david campos who

represents district nine. supervisor campos loves come post. it's great to be here at allegheny farm which is in district nine. it reminds me of a garage sale where you quickly find out that one person's trash is another person's treasure. here we are finding that all of our collective come post here in san francisco becomes a treasure for the entire community. we can be at a place that grows nutritious food and teaches the importance of growing food, of camposing and being good stewards of the environment. i want to thank all of the san francisco residents for the awareness and willingness to take action to make this change take place here in san francisco and for us to be able to sell britain so much success in the environmental realm. but it's important for us to

also remember that we need to continue to do this education and re-education as we have new people coming into san francisco as our residents, as we have friends and neighbors from other cities coming to our dinner tables and trying to figure out where do they put away their food scraps, that we can serve as a model for the rest of the country in setting the standard for being good stewards of the environment. so thank you very much and congratulations to everybody. [applause] >> good morning. i'm really proud to be here and i think we can all be proud of what san francisco has accomplished with respect to zero waste. 11 tons is really an enormous milestone. it's only because. hard work and support of a lot of people like mayor ed lee over all of the years likes mike and all the employee owners at recology. like the department of environment staff and the like the people behind me and really

all of the residents and people who work in san francisco who are recycling and com posting every day, at's how it really happens. i do want to go a little further to say we can do more. san francisco has a goal of zero waste by 2020. we're a good part of the way there. but we're still landfilling over 400,000 tons a year, so a lot of material is still going to the land phil. when you put material in your black trash bin, it goes straight to the land phil. so it's really important to put all of your recyclables, your paper, bottles, cans, hard places into the blue recycling bins. it's really important to put all of your compostable places, your trimmings, food scraps, and different kinds of paper that is hard to recycle, wet paper, soiled paper, paper that is coated with something, tissue paper, put that in why

your green carts. if we do that together, we can comply with the mandatory ordinance and get closer to zero waste in the future. thanks, everybody, we really appreciate all of your efforts. i would like to introduce jason, one of the co-managers of the farm here. [applause] >> howdy, everybody, and welcome, first of all, i'm glad to see a number of familiar faces like mayor lee out here and all of the team from recology. if you haven't been out here, welcome and we hope you come back soon. when visitors come to the farm, one of the things i tell them, we're not growing plants, we're going soil. that's the number one thing we're doing here, building soil. if we have healthy soil, we'll have healthy plants and then healthy people. it's as simple as that. our main task as an organic garden is to be guarding soil health and to be stewards