so it is my honor and also my thrill to be here today to not just to celebrate this grand achievement but to mark this historic moment for the port wr, we have once guinea involved ourselves both architecturally, scientifically, socially, and environmentally, and economically. and the port as you know, was the beginning of our city, just a few blocks here and it is the basic of the tell graph hill and it started as agricultural and fishing village, right there where down's offices are was the first fisherman's wharf. >> and it is just amazing to see how it has transformed. of course, the thing that really set the city on fire was the gold rush and in the words of one historian, the gold rush catapulted our little city of

san francisco into a far greater world ride prestige and enviable position than the tiny population really deserved and we have been in that role ever since and our port has evolved with the city as we welcomed new and improved ways of moving not from what used to be a pier for substanence but something that is important to the city as food was and that is innovation and quality of life. and so i can't think of a project that epitomizes that more than the exporatorium like our city and port has continuously evolved and expand and rebuilt and on behave of the port commissioners who will raise their hands and be recognized.

>> it is my honor to welcome the exporatorium as the ports newest coldest nugget to the world renoun catapulted water front and we look forward to celebrating the next 150 years, with all of you. and i would like to especially thank the exporatorium's board, staff, consultants, and supporters and friends. for with you all who were the innovators behind this vision, you all who had this dedication for too many years to count and you all who will make this all possible and so my ring, which i like to point out is going on top of david's ring. and that was a silly thing to say, david. only when you go last. my ring, back to the point, mr. mayor, thank god that i work for you.

my ring symbolizes the conductors and the communicaters and it is representative of the planners, the collaborative ra tores and the producers who created this vision and those of you who will keep it fresh for the next 150 years, please take a big bow all of you here today and it is truly an achievement, thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, monique very much. >> my team before you here is almost finished, we are going to ring the bell in just a few moments, let me just take a moment to say, that it has been a great privilege to be a part of this. terrific morning, but more than that, over the last many months to be reporting here, and one of the great privileges of my job is the opportunity to be a part of this community in such

a unique way and i am grateful for that, abc 7 is proud, television partner of the exporatorium and let me acknowledge the president and general manager, william burton, raise your hand if you would, and i want to say that because he has donated just countless amounts of television time to promote this event and be a part of it and so we are very proud to serve in that community. and so we are around a tv anchor and a bunch of politicians that they talk so much that we have to switch interpreters and we have warn them out and thank you for being here. that is how bad it is, right? >> doctor rob stemp er is a renouned physicist and really is the thread that connects in so many ways, the history and the fundamentals and the core values of frank's mission with the new modern day advancements and discoveries of the new exporatorium. please welcome dr. rob semper.

>> good morning, everyone. and welcome to the plaza, one of the wonderful things about the new exporatorium is that we have this wonderful outdoor space as well as in door space and would i like to think of us as an inside out museum and invite, and those that have come behind us outside of the plaza. >> when i first came in, 1977, i was privileged to join, a band of 35 people who already had been working for 8 years with frank in the palace of fine arts a place dedicated to the proposition that individuals need to be encouraged to ex-mror the world to ask the only questions and by learning and doing.

it was an appropriate place, and over the years, the staff and volunteers in the palace of fine arts established exist and produced 500 programs and hired 5,000 high school kids to be the ex-plainers. we built exhibits for over 100 museums from around the world and we design the museums for places as diverse as china and turkey. we published hundreds of papers on the work that we were doing about learning. we are first the website that brought the total solar eclipse live to millions of people and launched the first museum apps for tablets and all of this work was done by thousands of staff members and volunteers. nine years ago we talked to project to date and, we took everything that we learned in those 43 years and brought it over here and ported it into this building. we are so excited to show it

off to you today, and to show off this new, 21st century learning center and we really hope that you enjoy what is here. i think of this moment, not as a break, from the past, but a continuation of the work that was started by the pioneers in 1969. we are still a place dedicated to the proposition that individuals should be encouraged to explore the world by learning by doing and thinking for themselves. it was started in the cold war by frank for the idea that people need to think for themself and the world will be bet foreit. what we need now is just as much spirit and exporatorium will support that going forward. [ applause ] as i look around today, we are about to embark on this amazing new chapter, and i must say that i can't wait to see what happens over the next 40 years, with this wonderful facility.

and to echo dennis, earlier we will not be here without the commitment and the support of our staff, board and donor and designers, and contractors and builders and civic leaders and it and we support our gratitude. and so today i am adding the 7th ring, and supporters and champion and members and volunteers and all of the staff, past and present who have helped to build this place and will live in it going forward. >> notice that it is, the last ring. but it is not the last. i want to invite, now, dennis bartel and our explainers up to place the final piece on top of the bell.

as rob said, sorry, you were bitter as well and we have one more piece to go but i would like to invite all of the speakers on stage if you could please, and while they are coming up here, i wanted to also thank all of you, in particular, i know of a few of our pier colleague institutions from around the world from as far away as finland, and australia, costa rica and france have joined us here today and to all of our friends who come to share this moment with us, thank you so much. >> so, it is my honor to introduce the final piece through the future. our future. represented in our high school

explainer gloria granatos, >> so this final piece represents our friends, our communities our visitors, teachers, students and users worldwide. [ applause ] [ applause ] [ cheers ]

and our artists makia. i believe that means, that the exporatorium is now open, please come inside. thank you, everybody. thank you. ♪ >> good morning, everyone. >> good morning. >> all right. i'm mohammad nuru from the department of public works and i want to first begin by thanking all of you for coming out today. it is a very, very great day in san francisco. yeah?

>> yeah. >> all right. [ applause ] >> i remember about 16 months ago when we were here, we broke ground on this site and today, we are here for the topping ceremony. it is going to be a very, very great event, but i would like to first of all just thanks san francisco police department, fire department, dpw and everybody who has got us to this point. as we all know, public safety is a number one priority in this city. and it is the number one priority for our mayor and so, today, is a very, very great day as we take this step in topping this public safety building. before i introduce our mayor, as many of you know, when mayor lee ran for office there were three very important things that the mayor said that he was going to do. and one of them was he was going to create jobs.

and we all know, all of these projects, we have ordinances, that make sure that we have people on these jobs. and he also is an environmental stewart ship that we would do everything that we can to project our environment and build the green and lead buildings. >> this building will represent that and as i said earlier public safety was his number one priority and without going further, let me introduce the man who has worked very hard to get us to this point, our mayor, ed lee. >> thank you. good morning, everybody, welcome to mission bay. you know, in 2010, the board of supervisors and the mayor did everything that it could to create a dialogue with our voters. and asked them to pass a very

important bond, the earthquake safety and emergency response bond of 2010. 412 million dollar bond and should they pass it we would honor it with the best thought and planning process that the city could proviet and of course all of the agencies came together, our law enforcement agencies and i am glad to see our police commission here, fire commissions here and of course our two chiefs are here working in concert with the capitol planning group, with public works, and its architectal divisions of city engineer and its construction managers working with the private sector of panco, and hok to put together this bond program and particularly, this public safety building to be the first gem as i say, of public safety buildings that have so much catch to it so

many promises, and that we are we were not just willing to deliver, we are delivering this. on time, on budget with all of the highest levels of cooperation. because we know how important it is. i don't just want to talk the talk about being earthquake sensitive, we have to do the things to make sure that we are ready and this public safety building represents years of planning, a lot of struggle, with finance people, and the controllers office and others about bringing this in because we also made a promise that these bonds would not increase people's property taxes. and that we would retire the old bonds in order to create the room for these bonds that would not increase the property tax burden of our residents, and so we are doing it. and so topping off means that you bring all of your contact paraphernalia with you because we are going to do a lot of these in the years that i am mayor to make sure that these projects are completed and i am

glad to see, again, the top of the steel beam, some one of 6,205 pieces of steel that began their erection in january and we are here topping it off. it is important to know that the steel goes up because the building that is on the way of completing, the day of completion is november 14, it will house station four of our fire department [ applause ] >> yes. it will house southern station of our police department. [ applause ] >> and it will be the next command police head quarters for chief and his command staff as well. i was there at dpw for years, we were struggling about how we were going to replace 850 bryant street and obviously with the financial rec mifms

that we we can only do it in phases, only when we do this part, could we work on the courts and the jails and all of the rest of the agencies that are housed, the da and others that are housed in that very old building. today it is about the new public safety building, 700 construction jobs, thank you. union. maus plause [ applause ] for all of the contract unions. panco, and all of the designers that work on this and i notice that the police unit and the fire unit are here as well to celebrate this because they know that the workforce will be housed in more safe buildings and we mean to do that for every police and fire station. we will have to do more eastern bonds in the future, but this particular bond has at its main gem, 239 million dollars dedicated to the public safety building and we are also using that bond to work on the water

system and some of the fire stations that are in worst shape and we want to continue doing that. and it is a commitment that reflects today. we wanted to top this off and it came as a very, nice compliment to today's 107th anniversary of our 1906 earthquake as we did this morning but also what happened this morning about discovering a suspicious package, just goes to remind us both that we are vigilant and that we have to do these things and keep our city safe and i want to thank again, the men and women in all of our emergency response and our law enforcement for their dedication, today it is about celebrating the contractors and all of their great work that they are doing and working with, all of our dpw folks and everybody in the construction. because of topping of is so significant to suggest more than suggest and confirm that we are on time and on budget. you know, the confidence that

the public has with us handling these bonds is very important. and i value that. i value that relationship. because for supervisor kim, and board president chiu, this is what we live for, right? supervisors we live for that public trust and we earn it to make sure that these projects are done right and on time and with that we know that we have other bonds that we will talk about more. but this is really important because it is earthquake safety. and it is today, this morning, again, with the board's help, we signed off on the soft story, seismic retrofit program to suggest that 3,000 other soft story buildings in our city will get the attention, and get firmed up, with the soft story bond. while we take care of the low income tenants that are living there to make that affordable for them as well. so i want to celebrate and thank dpw for the leadership here, for the ten year capitol

planning group that has their focus to on honoring the public's wish and for all of the different, some ten different agencies coming together to make this public safety building happen. and again, to honor everybody here and by the way, 700 construction jobs, 20 percent were committed to local hiring, that is how smart we are doing this. and it is going to be a lead gold building that we are putting up and so we are honoring the environment at the same time. again, with the wonderful collaboration that goes on with all of the designers being sensitive to how the energy needs to be efficient and everything is being done right on this and i need to be thankful to everybody who is working together. congratulations and we are looking forward to the flag and the tree being on top of this when it goes up. >> all right. another big hand for mayor ed lee and his leadership. also joining us today there are

many community groups and contractors along with all of the other people that the mayor mentioned. the next person that i am going to ask to come up and say a few words, someone in 2010, when the bond went on the ballot, really went out of his way with the leadership to make sure that the bond passed and that is why we are here today. when that bond went to the ballot, every four out of five voters voted a yes for it. and that signifies the importance of why public safety facilities in san francisco is very, very important. leading that effort, in 2010, was our president of our board of supervisors, david chiu, would you please come up and say a few words. [ applause ] >> thank you, and thanks to all of you, and i want to just take a moment to talk about where we are in the history of our city. this morning, as the mayor mentioned, at 5:00 a.m., in the dark we got together to

commemorate the 107th anniversary of the great fire. and the great earthquake and i want to say for those of you who are here you look a little different in the sunlight, but 100 years ago, our city burned down for the 6th time, and part of the reason for that was there was a lot of partying that was happening in the parber coast and north beach, the partying that still goes on today. and when our city burned down, we decided that we had to rebuild our city, and in 1913, we built what was at that time, the most amazing underground water infrastructure in the entire world so that we could get ready for the next earthquake and fire. we also built fire stations and police stations all over this city, fast forward 100 years later to 2010. many of these buildings are underground water system were in dire need of repair, i was reluctant to be the lead sponsor and champion at that

time because we knew in june of 2010, the polls were not where they needed to be and they were folks in the administration that thought maybe we should wait for another ballot measure. but we came together and i want to thank those of you who worked in that campaign. i want to thank our fire chief joanne white would put her face on 200,000 pieces of mail that went out to voters and those of you who helped us to raise 400,000 for prop b and i want to thank the men and women who are standing behind us in uniform who got out of their uniforms to campaign for us on the city streets. and i want to thank our police chief i think bruce willis, i mean chief sur at that time before he came chief he was out there marching with all of us and making sure that this got done and it got done not at the 66 percent that we thought it was going to get done, but it got done with 80 percent of san francisco saying that we need to be prepared for the 21st century. and now let me tell you that there are in addition to what the mayor said and other than the fact that it is coming in

on time and a couple of reasons that i am excited about it. >> for someone who used to work at the hall of justice that building is going to come down. we need to make sure that we are ready with the command center when the next big one hits. another reason that i am excited about it is when the fire was burning in 2006 it took 96 hours for that fire for come under control. my understanding is that this building even if all of the grids are knocked out, even if the electricity does not pipe through san francisco, this building is designed to be operational under the most primitive circumstances for 96 hours. but, part of also why i am excited about this, as a city we are a city that knows how to rebuild and how to take our steps forward and we are the phoenix and this building, represents the very best at what san francisco is going to be about as we take or we move forward to deal with any challenges or any adversities that happen in the 21st century, thank you so much for being here.

[ applause ] >> as supervisor chiu said, these bonds are very important, and we have a few department heads who the public works department has had the opportunity to work for, and i am pretty sure all of their projects are very happy with the delivery, and the former director is in the crowd, where is he? please, thank you, ed. >> we also have the port of san francisco director monique moyer here. [ applause ] >> and we have the acting director for the department of building inspection, tom right behind me. and i see a few of our friends from puc, planning and many of the other city departments. but the one thing that i like about events in san francisco as we go around the city, every supervisor gets to speak on a project in their district.

and i think the supervisor whose district we are in, jane kim has got most of the projects that are happening in san francisco. yes. she does. and because i remember a few years ago i only live up the street in hunter's point this place used to just be a lot of warehouse and now we have this whole great mission bay development, and as part of mission bay development we have the building and we have many projects in san francisco, we have the hunter's point shipyard and we have quite a number of projects and i think that because of the leadership that the mayor has brought together along with the board of supervisors that make these projects happen. >> jane would you come up and say a few words about the projects in your district? >> thank you, director, and actually i have not heard that bruce willis reference, i knew that our chef sur as the cuddlely bear that was my reference.

>> district six is a very exciting place to be. as our residents know and of course the members of the city family and actually for a while the mayor and i were a traveling pair and go to a ground breaking once or twice a week and i got a bit of a break and i forgot why the mayor was actually in china and so we held off on some of the ground breakings since i got a break to stick around the office but it is very exciting in district six. we have the mayor had mentioned 37 clean up and a lot of them in the south of market and mission bay and mid market. there is a lot of change that is happening here. when i first moved to san francisco, i actually came here to come shopping for furniture, because this is where a lot of warehouses were. a lot of what we have here was not here ten years ago. >> district six grew its population by 25,000 residents in ten years from the 2000

census to the 2010, census and so we actually boast one of the busiest fire stations in the country, under one under chief haze white and we boast the busiest police precinct here in san francisco and i do have to thank the chief not only for his leadership and also granting us on captain who has been a tremendous public safety leader here for the south of market and i know that the residents appreciate the dedication and commitment for the south of market and mission bay, the public station is going to be very excited and shows the city's commitment to public safety. and as our district grows, that type of dedication is very important and this is an instance of where the city government works and so many different leaders and city agencies had to come together to make this possible whether it was the police department or the fire department or dpw and dbi and the mayor's office and the board of supervisors and i

also want to recognize the residents that are a big part of that public safety as well. we have members of our team here. in south of market and mission bay, and all of our city works together to keep our city safe. and that involves both our taxpayer dollars, bond dollars and also the volunteer hours of the residents who want to work to make this neighborhood and city great. so it is an honor to be here and sign the last beam of steel, i was told that there are 6206 pieces of steel in the building behind us and if you lay it flat, from the ballpark behind us it would go all wait to the oakland coliseum and that is pretty incredible. but i know that i will be hanging out here for a while at least as we wait for more development to happen in mission bay this will have one of the best views of our games. >> so, some of us will be coming out to champion our giant's team as well. thank to everyone who was involved in making this very

important effort for our neighborhood happen. thank you. [ applause ] >> so, i work for the city for over 13 years. and one of my first jobs was to maintain the hall of justice and so i can't tell you how happy i am today to be standing here. i just can't tell you, because of all of the needs of that facility. and in those days, the designs were a little different because we have a jail on top, and then we have chief sur's office underneath there and the court office and all of the main nens needs for all of the activities that happened on top, required huge maintenance hours and huge amounts of staff time to come and repair. and so i am very, very happy to be here. but i am going to ask the chief to come and talk about his vision of what he wo