in hand celebrating with you to create even more art in the city. by the way, it's budget time, so tom in the art commission, you have done very well with the opening of this timing with everybody else that we have the proper level of art to be creative, to bless us with all the things that are so positive and to exemplify the arts community for what it's done. with that, i would like to introduce our artist leo villa real. >> thank you so much. i'm beyond thrilled to be here today. this has been an incredible 2-and-a-half years from the initial idea when ben davis asked me to consider the bridge and how it can be turned into a canvas and having thought about it and created an

assimilation on the computer, animation that so many people saw and were inspired to get behind and enabled to happen. so many people to thank, but certainly folks at cal trans and mayor's office, governors office. there were so many hoops we had to jump through. getting the permit was one of the miracles. i thank you for believing in public art and helping us get this done. amy has been amazing, our executive art director. [ applause ] amy was able to shepherd this impossible project through all the intricacies, i'm in

incredibly grateful for her help, grateful for his efforts in another monumental task. he's raised $6 million of our $8 million. this project is an incredible gift by our pat patrons through the city. this is an incredible piece. you don't have to buy a ticket. it's there and available. a very universal quality, it has some response to it. it's operating on a very primal level. i think we the technical team that put this piece up has been remarkable. zad and zoon

has been a lifesaver. incredible individual who has never said no to me. everything is always been possible and bringing the team together to actually install this work. to make a photo shop simulation and 3d animation project. it was in incredibly inspiring. i went out there on a cloudy day and it was incredible magic that was happening. i knew this was going to be fine if i can channel the interaction of all these systems into my work. so i'm very grateful for everyone who helps install this piece. we had lane closures.

everything happened from 5 a.m. there were hundreds of thousands of cars and the contractors installing this 550 feet over the water. incredibly challenging work but here we are. i would like to thank my team and studio, everyone helping, our lead programmer, transit for helping with all our networking, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes of help that nobody will know about, we have computers, wireless connections, i want to thank timothy child's who helps us invent this custom clip which we used to hang these lights on the bridge. there was a lot of

behind-the-scenes that's it's taken to bring this work to a reality. i guess our patrons are also, that's a whole other -- unleashing generosity in the way that we have just really bologna way blown -- away. incredible innovation at work and thankful to phillips for their equipment and standing behind they are technology and helping us achieve what we have done i guess we are here and ready to punch the button on the computer. we are using a laptop tonight and it's going to go on at 9:00. i'm just incredibly grateful and keep

pinching myself that this is happening. i'm incredibly overwhelmed that this is happening and i'm eager to share this work with all of you. thank you. all right. every year we come out to celebrate arbor day in the month of march and i'm happy to kickoff this year

arbor day here at this special location. joined with us today we have several guest. i know dan is here, larry stringer is here and our colleagues and our partners in arbor day. today like many other days, trees will be dedicated in someone who has contributed to san francisco either through their work or given back to the environment through culture, through arts and through many of the hard work and we will unveil who will receive this dedication today. as many of you know trees are very important for our communities. they provide us shade, they deter water from going into our storm systems, they provide a place for birds and butterflies and of course they help us

clean our air. arbor day is a very important event. it is celebrated not just in america, but all over the world and i'm honored that we are kicking this event. i would like to thank the mayor for bringing arbor day back to san francisco. this is our 8th arbor day. i will welcome mayor lee to the stage. >> thank you the dpw, the recreation department, to all of those who helped us in working today. arbor day, it is an annual celebration that we have struggled very hard to make sure this city appreciate

because the trees are part of a great answer and solution to reducing carbon emissions and be sure we have greenery and beautification for our citizens. a lot of my friends celebrated chinese new years in china and this year for chinese new years, wilhelm wundt wilhelm wundt of the one of the gifts they gave to the employees is an air mask. if you don't start contributing to its purification, you don't get the kind of air like you do in san francisco. this is why trees are so important to our nature and this is what i love about the city because when it comes to our environment, we do

make some serious investments, whether it's green buildings, waste management or going into electric vehicles or getting everybody to change their habits, one of the habits that we want to continue having is planting trees. and so every year for the last 8 years, we have select a signatory to plant and we have taken the liberties of honoring people that have contributed to the quality of life for all of us. in past years, people like rosa parks, caesar chavez, people that we know and are familiar with, along with people that we are not that familiar with but have made some great contributions. today we thought we would take this opportunity to celebrate an icon of san francisco. the brown twin

sisters have been with us for many decades. mary is here today, she's here in celebration and memory of her sister as we all are and we want to take this opportunity to use the arbor day to have a cedar tree, a tree that will grow taller than mary or i. it will grow to be a hundred feet tall. it will be a tree that will be celebrated here in san francisco for generations to come and we thought it would be not only appropriate, but we thought it would be our honor by planting this tree in recognition of vivian and her wonderful contributions to our city. and we are especially

blessed with maryann honoring us with her presence. it's not that easy for her to get around these days but she has and continues to be part of an incredible twin sisters. but now she's also missing vivian as much as we are and we felt this would be a proper way to create a celebratory atmosphere on how we miss vivian, how much she meant to us and take this opportunity for arbor day to plant this tree in her name. how is that, maryann for a great celebration? >> wonderful. i know my sister from heaven is watching. >> all right. she said vivian is up there applauding us and we have a great time of celebrate. ing. with that,

supervisor lee, you should know, it's always been under dispute as to who is supposed to be responsible for this piece of land. was it the highway folks, the residents who built their homes here, was it dpw, we are trying to gift it to rec's and park for nothing because it's an incredible responsibility. look at how beautiful this place it. we do keep it up. it does barrier the intense traffic that we deal with here. i travel quite a bit and everyone i know always glances here and takes a breath of fresh air a midst all of this traffic. this

adds beauty and value to this area. i would like to give this proclamation to maryann and have her treasure this and the permanent memory of her sister and how we celebrate people who are part of our culture as the brown sisters have been and also have been on literally every page of our wonderful visitors galleries, they have been in movies, commercials, they have become a part of what we see in san francisco and how we advertise ourselves around the world as a great place to live and work in. with that, with this proclamation, declares today to be vivian brown tree day in san francisco and also appropriately names

this california cedar to be the tree for vivian brown in san francisco. >> beautiful. thank you all for coming. >> all right. like the mayor said, this is a california tree. the tree bark was used for making medicine for people with stomach aches. it's also been used as a wind break and been used in many many parks. tree comes from the cypress family and the botanical name.

i'm happy we are adding such a tree to san francisco and to honor the vivian brown sisters. now like we've done in many of our events, it's always an honor to introduce the supervisor of the district and like he said, we are very familiar with this piece of land. this land has had many trees that act as a buffer to the neighborhood and the neighborhood appreciates it but we are still trying to figure out who is the legal owner of it, but in that process, dpw and the neighbors always join and the one thing we do know is we need to take care of the trees and we do that with that, i introduce the supervisor norman yee. >> thank you, i'm just one of many san franciscans celebrating this day, arbor

okay for vivian brown. i'm so glad that we have an opportunity to have a celebration in this district 7 to be able to celebrate more intensely this great icon of san francisco and i just hope that i get to see the tree when it's a hundred feet tall. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. also as part of our partnership as many of you know we partner with many of the non-profits i see san francisco beautiful here. welcome, kristin who is a great partner with us and we also partner with other great cities. i would like to ask mr. -- to come up and talk to us if you would. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here to celebrate arbor day

with you. this is an okay to celebrate our trees, in 4,000 open acres of our city we are able to enjoy and benefit from over 140,000 trees and a couple interesting facts on arbor day, there are trees and responsible for the creation and monterey pine and different types of trees which you can find in the panhandle which was a laboratory to find what best trees can grow and they settled on those three specific trees. what i would like to say and i can thank another partner mohammed

a friend of the forest who cares for the city so well. i also want to give a big shout out to the men and women who take care of our trees, the gardeners, laborers. mary, i would like to end, did you read the book about a tree that gives and gives to a person who started out as a young boy and all throughout life he came to visit that tree and took a little bit from that tree until the tree had nothing left to give. i think you and your sister have given so much to this city and have contributed to its spirit that there is nothing that is more fitting in honoring the two of you than planting a new tree to give and give back to the community. so congratulations and i'm over

joyed to be part of this honor. >> san francisco [inaudible] you take care of people and that is wonderful. we have always enjoyed living in san francisco. it's you people, people that make this world. what would this world be with no people. so we love san francisco. never leave your heart in san francisco. always come and find it here. [ applause ] . >> okay. and also as part of my job being responsible for many trees and i can tell you that this has become one of the harder parts of my job and we

have gone out and tried to get people more involved and between the right of way there are about a thousand trees and from the parks about other 120,000 trees. we are working very hard to make sure we preserve that asset. many of our trees have aged and we need to start a process of reforestation and it involves good planning. i will ask the veteran of the department who has the policy group to advise us on what we should do as the city. melanie. >> thank you. good afternoon, everyone. it is an honor to be here on behalf of the department with all of to you celebrate arbor day. this is a department of the environment, one of our favorite days. what

we support is the climate program. we look at what is our carbon inventory and where is our carbon emission come from. we know it comes from the environment and we are working very diligently to mitigate the carbon sectors. we know that many trees is the answer to reduce the carbon emissions further. in addition it's critical to our adaptation strategy thinking about if we can't ward off, trees will continue to help us with storm

waters and they boost property value where they have a robust urban forest. i wanted to mention when i first moved to san francisco, i lived on russian hill, i would sometimes take the cable car and i would often see you and your sister see both of them smiling and the warmth they shared as twins, it brought a smile to my face everyday. as you said before you started your sister is smiling down today and it will live on for both of you, thank you. >> we are going to lower the tree and plant the tree in honor of vivian. miriam i'm so

happy that you are here with us today >> i have glad to have seen all of you and hope you have a great day and never forget the beloved city of san francisco. >> we should turn around and get the shovels. after 3. 1, 2, 3. all right. [ applause ] . all right.