Approach this changing situation, its exhausting and i have seen how it has affected everybody. Whats happening in mission and the relationship with the police, well its relevant and its relevant that people think about it that day of the dead is not just sugar skulls and paper flowers and candles, but its become a nondenominational tradition that people celebrate. Our culture is about color and family and if that is not present in your life, there is just no meaning to it you know . We have artists as black and brown people that are in direct danger of the direct policies of the trump a administration and i think how each of the artists has responsibilitie responded ss interesting. The common everybody, i think were going to get started. Our honorable mayor is here, and i know that we have a huge crowd and some big celebrating to do, so i want to welcome you to the groundbreaking for 88 broadway and 75 david street. So im cynthia parker, and im the president and c. E. O. Of Bridge Housing, and i am the cohost today with our partner, john stewart, but what i want to do is acknowledge all of the people here in the audience who have helped us get here today. So with us, we have mayor london breed, our honorable and esteemed mayor, welcome. [applause] we have supervisor aaron peskin, whos been a big supporter, and thank you, supervisor peskin. We have Elaine Forbes whos executive director of the port of San Francisco. Thank you for coming and your help. [applause] we have many reps from bank of america. Liz, thanks for coming. [applause] we have bruce cantor whos a member of the northeast Waterfront Advisory Group. [applause] and we have bob carrier whos a member of the Barbary Coast neighborhood association. So thank you for coming. [applause] this group thats sitting here today sort of does represent a neighborhood inside of a village, the village of San Francisco. And two neighborhood associations, a Waterfront Advisory Group, and partners with the city, with the Mayors Office of housing and jayesco have really made this happen during the development period. I know that john stewart is going to comment on some of this, but i know there are 26 neighborhood meet there were 26 neighborhood meetings that made this happen, and i want to do a special shoutout to john stewart who lives in this neighborhood and wanted to make sure that these two developments reflect the values of this community, and i think they do. So thank you, john, for all of your hard work, and forever, your partnership with that. When this r. F. P. Came out from the city of San Francisco, i ran into jack gardner whos the other principle at jayesco. You know, he said, we did north beach together. Do you think its time to get the band back together and respond to this r. F. P. . I said yes, and we did it, and we were selected. Frankly, i think we were the right team to pull this project together. It has made a big difference to this neighborhood for all the reasons i just said. 26 meetings, resident developer, and a commitment to make this happen. I want to also acknowledge some special shoutouts to both the city and the mayor, to your commitment to Affordable Housing and to these kinds of developments. This project is really special because it is one of the few thats really said were going to hows both seniors and a Senior Development and families and have an income mix that represents both formerly Homeless People as well as people up to median income, up to 80 of median income, the missing middle. And that doesnt happen very often. I and believe it will completely and i believe it will completely be a success because it weve all because weve all worked so hard, and it represents this community. And i believe we will get more housing in the ground because we need nor housing in the city. [applause] so with that, im not going to steal the thunder. We have a lot of speakers here today, and with that, what i do want to do is invite our lovely mayor to come up. She has the values and tgumptin to make Affordable Housing in the city. I invite you to come up to say a few words. [applause] the hon. London breed thank you, cynthia. Its so great to be here with you because john, we know this project was a long time coming. We work hard in this city to try to repurpose this whole waterfront. Some of you were around during this 89 earthquake. I certainly was. I remember when this used to be a water way, and look at how beautiful our waterfront has become with a lot of businesses, a lot of housing, and here is an opportunity to provide 178 units of Affordable Housing for families and seniors. This is absolutely amazing. [applause] the hon. London breed and let me just also say that last year, it was brought to my attention that for the Senior Development that were being placed here at 735 davis street, there were still so many seniors who didnt meet the minimum income qualifications because we know that there are a lot of different challenges with affordability in San Francisco. People who are low, extremely low, people who are just exiting homelessness, people who just barely meet the minimum qualifications, and sometimes those who exceed it by just a little bit. Its why we have to change access to Affordable Housing in San Francisco. And we along with the Mayors Office of housing and kate hartley identified revenues in order to buydown the availability so that more residents who are in this community can actually qualify for housing in the communities in which they live. So i want to thank you, kate, for your leadership on that effort. We are going to have diverse homes of mixed incomes living in these developments. So supervisor peskin, former president of the board, but representative of this district, you know im going to need your help to make sure that as we break ground on this project, we dont want any delays, we dont want any challenges, we dont want any issues because we need this housing, and a oneday delay is a oneday delay of housing for those who need it the most. We had a press conference for 600 million Affordable Housing bond, the largest bond in the history of this city that the board of supervisors is going to be voting on unanimously to put on the ballot, and were going to do so without raising property taxes in a very responsible way, which is how we should be handling the citys and the taxpayers money in our city. But it means a lot because we know that there are challenges with affordability in our city. And we know that we have to work harder and faster to get this much needed Affordable Housing units built. People are counting on us to make good decisions and to not allow bureaucracy to get in the way of much needed Affordable Housing. Thank you to everyone whos joining us today because those 178 seniors and families, when they move into those units, when theyre looking out those new windows, when theyre cooking dinner on their new stove, can you think about how it might feel especially if you didnt have housing in the first place, if you lived in an s. R. O. And you didnt have a kitchen, can you imagine what its going to mean to people to live right here in this beautiful, amazing community, which once consisted of darkness and a friday and is now open with all of the light and incredible views, a place where everyone want to live in in San Francisco, and they will be a part of the future of this great city. No one will be left behind as a result of this great project, so thank you to john stewart and John Stewart Company. Thank you so much to Bridge Housing and cynthia, to kate, to supervisor peskin, and all the Community Members and the people who helped make this possible. This is truly San Francisco at its best, and there is more to come. Thank you all so much. [applause] the hon. London breed sorry. I want to introduce john stewart, but i want to just say that i met john stewart over 20 years ago. And i used to work at treasure island, and some of you remember when that housing was empty, and it was vacated by the navy, and we have the task of rehabilitating those units and moving formerly homeless veterans, formerly homeless families and other people of all incomes into treasure island. The partnership with John Stewart Company was not just a partnership that helped to rehabilitate those units, they also helped to make sure that those formerly homeless families and veterans had working utilities, and that they had Coffee Makers and dishes and beds and sheets and all the things that so many people may take for granted. But these were people who were starting their lives over. And the person who led that effort without being asked to do so was john stewart himself, and so ladies and gentlemen, john stewart of John Stewart Company. [applause] the mayor has been drinking early. Well talk later. Thank you so much. Ed lee was once to say, ill keep it short because i am short. That was his big oneliner. A few comments that i really wanted to speak about, i think two or three things. First, i get a lot of questions on the piles that were sinking into the ground at 90 feet and 60 feet. Theyre not impact piles as the way that have occurred at many sites. These are augering, theyre very sensitive to the neighbors because theyre not impact piles. Theres going to be 170 of them, and theyre very sensitive to the neighbors. And also, we dont want to repeat we got the memo on the millennium towers, and were going to bedrock. It seemed like a good idea. Also, people asked me about those cobblestones. When we dug down 8 feet, we found shoes, elixir bottles, and we also found a whole series of red caps which said make America Great again, and were going to be selling them later to enhance our Financial Balance Sheet on this deal. On the subject of process, i think were particularly proud of the fact that over 4plus, almost 5 years, we had a Record Number of meeting involving a myriad of local involvement, various people you can see authorities and housing entities that all had a stake in this thing, and they all came out, and they all spoke their piece, which i will in closing do a few shoutouts. There is something that i would call district 3 deja vu, and im looking at aaron now because 17 years ago, a young supervisor along with a young mayor at the time, willie brown, started working on a project called north beach place. Its out of the its off the cliff side. Its a project that has great similarity to what you see today. For those of you that are a little long in the tooth, you might remember that project. It also was affordable. It had mixed income, mixed use, and mixed age. We have, too, so there. And one of the things that strikes me about it, aaron peskin, i think really made a statement because he was boots on the ground, went to every meeting, very supportive of that project as he was then and he is now. Its my pleasure to introduce the supervisor. [applause] supervisor peskin mayor breed, ms. Parker, mr. Stewart, to your respective organization, but most importantly to the community and amongst those and first and foremost amongst those, the Barbary Coast neighbors. It is true almost 20 years ago that i attended all of those meetings at north beach place, but thankfully, i attended few if any in this particular project. But mr. Cantor did, miss taylor did, and i want to say they made it a better project. This neighborhood involvement made this a better project. Let me say a few words about what my mayor said, and it is the history of the embarcadero freeway which was, by all accounts, a terrible urban planning mistake. And then, in 1989, after the loma prieta earthquake, we had a mayor who had the courage to rip that thing down. And by the time thenstate senator quentin kopp transferred the property to the city for one american dollar, willie brown was mayor. And there was a little neighborhood fight about what we were going to do with those parcels. One was going to be a police station, one was going to be a butterfly museum, one was going to be Affordable Housing. I am pleased to say that today, they are all Affordable Housing for the city and county of San Francisco. That is remarkable. [applause] supervisor peskin now, it is true that i wanted this site, even though my friends at the Barbary Coast neighbors disagreed, i wanted this to be a temporary navigation site. But the mayor and i and supervisor haney have teamed up to find one not so far away. And i also want to agree with the mayor that Affordable Housing is actually not that affordable, and we all know the numbers that we just saw, the homeless count. And its just not San Francisco, its portland, seattle, and los angeles, continue to rise. So here are 53 units that are going to keep some of my seniors and this is the district that has the highest percentage of seniors in the city and county of San Francisco from being homeless. But you know what . Its not affordable to many of our seniors, which is precisely why miss hartley, mayor breed, president yee and i teamed up to create what we called s. O. S. , senior operating subsidies which is in this years budget for shallow subsidies for seniors so they can actually continue to live and age in place. This is a great day for the city and county of San Francisco, one and all, particularly to the workers who are building this thing. Congratulations. [applause] a. Supervisor peskin all right. This is a weird jurisdictional thing, because you think the owner is the city and county of San Francisco, but it is the port and held in trust by the city and county of San Francisco and lands owned by the public works. Now weirdly enough, the port land is inland, and the public works land is closer to the water, which ive never figured out. But instrumental to this entire project was the port of the city and county of San Francisco, their executive director, miss Elaine Forbes. Hello, everyone. Its very great to be here today. We all love a ground breaking. As you all know, the port manages 7. 5 miles of waterfront property. Our future is very brite since the loma prieta freeway came down, but nothing makes us prouder than to welcome the neighbors and residents who will come to enjoy this community. We are proud to announce what will be a solution to the Affordable Housing crisis. I want to acknowledge, and supervisor peskin knows this very well, it takes the port quite a long time to figure out what to do with its property, and 88 broadway was a very long conversation. And actually, it was the Community Residents that said they would like to use we would like to use these underused lots that youre using for parking. So tom ammiano provided us a bill to be able to use this for housing. Here is another example where we can welcome low, mod, seniors, and formerly Homeless Housing to our waterfront. For us, the northeast Waterfront Advisory Group helped us provide standards for 88 broadway. It was a very patient process, and it did improve the project. Its that kind of collaboration, that kind of problem solving that got us here today. Theres a lot of port staffers in the audience that have been working here for sometime. Thank you so much, and id like to introduce liz minnick from the bank of america. [applause] good afternoon, everyone, and what a glorious afternoon we have for this fabulous day today. Bank of america was founded in this very city in 1904 and has a long history of helping people get in homes and working towards Affordable Housing. From the work after the 1906 earthquake to the recent work with the San Francisco r. A. V. Commission and the rehabilitation of sorry. Well let the coast guard get back. 29 properties for which we financed over 2. 2 billion. For these two properties that we are discussing today, bank of america has provided over 133 million in financing. First, thank you to all of our bank of mercteams to continue their efforts on america teams to continue their efforts on helping to provide housing. And now, i will introduce brynna cantor. [applause] good afternoon. We were involved in the long process of the design of this building. Its just incredible that were going to see more family and Senior Housing here, which is really important to keep our city diverse. We certainly need more of them. It also includes a child care facility, so thats why i have my daughter here, simone, who has become a conoisseur of all the child care facilities in the city. Since this center is going to have a playground, i think shes going to want to check that out, right, simone . Mmhmm. Thanks to the Mayors Office of housing and all the great inclusive bidding that we had during this process, and of course, John Stewarts wonderful team, including us along every step of the way. Had countless meetings. Our supervisor, aaron peskin, and the previous supervisor, julie christiansen, who really got the project going for us. Again, just really impressed with the outreach from the community stages of the project. The team reacted to Community Concerns along the way and modified the project to a very mature building which you see on these drawings here today. In particular, were really impressed with the ground level uses for the community, the services, retail, etc. , that that activate the street. This was a great example of how our project should happen. So you think thats good . Yes. So ill keep it here with introducing one of our Barbary Coast representatives, bob hauer. Thank you, bruno. Good afternoon, everybody. I know its hot, so ill try to be as brief as i possible can. First of all, i want to say on behalf of the Barbary Coast neighborhood association, im very happy to be here today as this project starts to take almost a concrete step forward to bring some badly needed housing to San Francisco. And i also want to express my sincere appreciation to the port and the Mayors Office of housing for all the opportunities that they gave to listen to the neighborhood and to work with us and to resolve well, not resolve, but to work with us to help design a project that really will work for the neighborhood. I think there were many, many discussions and meetings and a number of outcomes that are very positive. Two id like to mention in particular. First of all, if we look at the residents, not only will this housing unit have room and units designated for the formerly homeless and lowincome, but it will also have units for the middleincome households. And this is a first in San Francisco, and its my understanding that thisll be the first large multifamily unit for Affordable Housing that will have units for the middleincome households, and i think everybody should be aware of the shrinking population that we have of the middleincome population in this town. Secondly, i think the development of the ground floor is another real positive outcome. Rather than having a large parking garage that wouldnt add to the ambiance of the neighborhood, we have a location for child care for the children. All of this will serve to activate the neighborhood further. I think it will create a much more pleasant experience along this area of broadway. And then finally, i want to mention the certainly our appreciation to the John Stewart Company and Bridge Housing. The design is attractive. Theyve gone through a number of extra measures to make sure its not a boring, institutional structure, and i certainly appreciate all the different opportunities that they have provided to for the neighborhood to get some input. So with that, ill just close by saying i think this project is a tremendous asset, will be a tremendous asset to the neighborhood, and it will make this stretch of broadway even more inviting. And so with that, i am done, and i will let john stewart handle the closing of this ceremony. Thank you. [applause] thank you. I have to add one codicil to whats been said. We observe neighborhood reactions to the concept of formerly homeless, and they run screaming from the run. Theres a lack of opposition. On this project, theres six entities that reviewed all of all of our designs and plans and our sociology. Not once did i hear anybody say oh, wow, youre going to have formerly homeless . Therell be 37 formerly homeless . That to me was a first. And also, i think they liked the idea of combining the two. That hybrid between formerly homeless making general assistance 30 of a. M. I. And people making 10,000 a month will be a grant interesting social experiment that we as a company have not tried before, and im sure our supervisor will be making many calls to us. In fact, i can hear you now, aaron. His battery has gone dead. I will quickly say there were a few other stars in the community. I just want to give a quick shoutout to ed stan hayes. Janet, barbara, janice, and ken. The fabric of this neighborhoods going to change with the additional units. Architect, l. M. S. Bill letty, Aaron Thorton were in every one of the Public Meetings that we had over four years. Theyll bore you to death talking about quotes, but theyre really nice people at heart. Lenders, b of a, and the woman with the money, kate hartley. Thank you, and thank you. The contractor, what can you say . Cahill happened to be the contractor 17 years ago at north beach place. Actually, i think Howard Carlson was one of the supervisors then, and he still is, so thats what i call good employee retention. We have alex shafer, don brooks, and of course, chuck pele is one of our stars. Hes fantastic. And the port, weve already done that, Elaine Forbes. Mickey tuzanni and michael martin. Gail gilman and Victor Makras are on the commission, and theyre here today, and thank you for attending. Cindys staff are what we call our intrepids. Thank you, mayor breed, for causing them to be so totally active. I would start with kate hartley, kudos to you. You were with this thing from the beginning. We appreciate it. Youve got a great team. Luther from social services, cushman and wakefield are all going to be contributors to this. We do have a cafe and a restaurant going in here, and youre all expected to come and be big tippers when we open up that restaurant. Bridge side, and i have to say, im looking at cynthia, marie tabor, give her a raise. She paid me to just say that. You owe me, marie, and in our office, several people have dedicated a large part of their lives to this. Lastly, there are some empty chairs who represent back in the day. Olson lee, well have the cobblestones along with the make America Great caps. Last, mayor ed lee. He loved this project. I remember talking to him about this the week before he left us, and he loved this. What a fantastic legacy for you to carry on, and dont think we forget about it, supervisor peskin. So with that, i stand between you and a free lunch, and there is one occasionally, so we are now going to do the ground breaking. Somebody needs to get a shovel, and we need some earth. Well do that, and then, well all get a free lunch. Thank you very much, everybody, for coming. The hon. London breed five, four, three, two, one. All right. Get to work my son and i was living in my car. We was in and out of shelters in San Francisco for almost about 3. 5 years. I would take my son to school. We would use a public rest room just for him to brush his teeth and do a quick little wipeoff so it seemed he could take a shower every day. It was a very stressful time that i wish for no one. My name is mario, and i have lived in San Francisco for almost 42 years. Born here in hayes valley. I applied for the San FranciscoAffordable Housing lottery three times. My son and i were having to have a great happened to have a great lottery number because of the neighborhood preference. I moved into my home in 2014. The neighborhood preference goal was what really allowed me to stay in San Francisco. My favorite thing is the view. On a clear day, im able to see city hall, and on a really clear day, i can see salesforce tower. We just have a wonderful neighborhood that we enjoy living in. Being back in the neighborhood that i grew up in, its a wonderful, wonderful experience. Now, we can hopefully reach our goals, not only single mothers, but single fathers, as well, who are living that. Live your dream, live your life, this is one place you can always count on to give you what you had before and remind you of what your San Francisco history used to be. We hear that all the time, people bring their kids here and their grandparents brought them here and down the line. Even though people move away, whenever they come back to the city, they make it here. And they tell us that. Youre going to get something made fresh, made by hand and made with quality products and something thats very, very good. The legacy bars and restaurants was something that was begun by San Francisco simply to recognize and draw attention to the establishments. It really provides for San Franciscos unique character. And that morphed into a request that we work with the city to develop a legacy business registration. Im Michael Cirocco and the owner of an area bakery. The bakery started in 191. My grandfather came over from italy and opened it up then. It is a small operation. Its not big. So everything is kind of quality that way. So i see every piece and cut every piece that comes in and out of that oven. Im leslie ciroccomitchell, a fourth generation baker here with my family. So we get up pretty early in the morning. I usually start baking around 5 00. And then you just start doing rounds of dough. Loaves. My mom and sister basically handle the front and then i have my nephew james helps and then my two daughters and my wife come in and we actually do the baking. After that, my mom and my sister stay and sell the product, retail it. You know, i dont really think about it. But then when i sometimes when i go places and i look and see places put up, oh this is our 50th anniversary and everything and weve been over 100 and that is when it kind of hits me. You know, that geez, weve been here a long time. [applause] a lot of people might ask why our legacy business is important. We all have our own stories to tell about our ancestry. Our lineage and ill use one example of tommys joint. Tommys joint is a place that my husband went to as a child and hes a fourth generation san franciscan. Its a place we can still go to today with our children or grandchildren and share the stories of what was San Francisco like back in the 1950s. Im the general manager at tommys joint. People mostly recognize tommys joint for its murals on the outside of the building. Very bright blue. You drive down and see what it is. They know the building. Tommys is a San Francisco hoffa, which is a germanstyle presenting food. We have five different carved meats and we carve it by hand at the station. You prefer it to be carved whether you like your brisket fatty or want it lean. You want your pastrami to be very lean. You can say i want that piece of corn beef and want it cut, you know, very thick and i want it with some sauerkraut. Tell the guys how you want to prepare it and they will do it right in front of you. San franciscos a place thats changing restaurants, except for tommys joint. Tommys joint has been the same since it opened and that is important. San francisco in general that we dont lose a grip of what San Franciscos came from. Tommys is a place that youll always recognize whenever you lock in the door. Youll see the same staff, the same bartender and have the same meal and that is great. Thats important. The service that San Francisco heritage offers to the legacy businesses is to help them with that application process, to make sure that they really recognize about them what it is that makes them so special here in San Francisco. So well help them with that application process if, in fact, the board of supervisors does recognize them as a legacy business, then that does entitle them to certain financial benefits from the city of San Francisco. But i say really, more importantly, it really brings them public recognition that this is a business in San Francisco that has history and that is unique to San Francisco. It started in june of 1953. And we make everything from scratch. Everything. We started a you we started a off with 12 flavors and mango fruits from the philippines and then started trying them one by one and the family had a whole new clientele. The business really boomed after that. I think that the flavors we make reflect the diversity of San Francisco. We were really surprised about the legacy project but we were thrilled to be a part of it. Businesses come and go in the city. Pretty tough for businesss to stay here because it is so expensive and theres so much competition. So for us who have been here all these years and still be popular and to be recognized by the city has been really a huge honor. We got a phone call from a woman who was 91 and she wanted to know if the mitchells still owned it and she was so happy that we were still involved, still the owners. She was our customer in 1953. And she still comes in. But she was just making sure that we were still around and it just makes us feel, you know, very proud that were carrying on our fathers legacy. And that we mean so much to so many people. It provides a perspective. And i think if you only looked at it in the here and now, youre missing the context. For me, legacy businesses, legacy bars and restaurants are really about setting the context for how we come to be where we are today. I just think its part of San Francisco. People like to see familiar stuff. At least i know i do. In the 1950s, you could see a picture of tommys joint and looks exactly the same. We havent change add thing. I remember one lady saying, you know, ive been eating this ice cream since before i was born. And i thought, wow we have, too. My name is Angela Wilson and im an owner of the market i worked at a butcher for about 10 years and became a butcher you i was a restaurant cook started in sxos and went to uc; isnt that so and opened a cafe we have produce from small farms without small butcher shops hard for small farms to survive we have a been a butcher shop since 1901 in the heights floor and the case are about from 1955 and it is only been a butcher shot not a lot of businesses if San Francisco that have only been one thing. Im all for vegetarians if you eat meat eat meat for quality and if we care of were in a losing battle we need to support butcher shops eat less we sell the chickens with the head and feet open somebody has to make money when you pay 25 for a chicken i guarantee if you go to save way half of the chicken goes in the enlarge but we started Affordable Housing depends on it occurred to us this is a male field people said good job even for a girl the interesting thing it is a womens field in most of world just here in United States it is that pay a mans job im an encountered woman and raise a son and teach i am who respect woman i consider all womens who work here to be impoverished and strong in San Francisco labor is high our cost of good ideas we seal the best good ideas the profit margin that low but everything that is a laboring and thats a challenge in the town so many people chasing money and not i can guarantee everybody this is their passion. Im the ive been cooking mile whole life this is a really, really strong presence of women heading up kitchens in the bay area it is really why i moved out here i think that we are really strong in the destroy and really off the pages kind of thing i feel like women befrp helps us to get back up im definitely the only female here i fell in love i love setting up and love knowing were any food comes from i do the lamb and thats how i got here today Something Special to have a female here a male dominated field so i think that it is very special to have women and especially like it is going at it you know im a tiny girl but makes me feel good for sure. The sad thing the building is sold im renegotiating my lease the neighborhood wants us to be here with that said, this is a very difficult business it is a constant struggle to maintain freshness and deal with what we have to everyday it is a very high labor of business but something im proud of if you want to get a job at Affordable Housing done nasal you need a good attitude and the jobs on the bottom you take care of all the produce and the fish and computer Ferry Terminal and work your way up employing people with a passion for this and empowering them to learn [ ] i am the supervisor of district one. I am sandra lee fewer. [ ] i moved to the Richmond District in 1950 mine. I was two years old. I moved from chinatown and we were one of the first asian families to move out here. [ ] when my mother decided to buy that house, nobody knew where it was. It seems so far away. For a long time, we were the only chinese family there but we started to see the areas of growth to serve a larger chinese population. The stress was storage of the birthplace of that. My father would have to go to chinatown for dim sum and i remember one day he came home and said, there is one here now. It just started to grow very organically. It is the same thing with the russian population, which is another very large ethnic group in the Richmond District. As russia started to move in, we saw more russian stores. So parts of the richmond is very concentrated with the Russian Community and immigrant Russian Community, and also a chinese immigrant community. [ ] i think as living here in the richmond, we really appreciate the fact that we are surrounded three natural barriers. They are beautiful barriers. The presidio which gives us so many trails to walk through, ocean beach, for families to just go to the beach and be in the Pacific Ocean. We also also have a National Park service. We boarded the Golden Gate NationalRecreation Area so there is a lot of activity to do in the summer time you see people with bonfires. But really families enjoying the beach and the Pacific Ocean during the rest of the time of year. [ ] and Golden Gate Park where we have so many of our treasures here. We have the tea garden, the museum and the academy of sciences. Not to mention the wonderful playgrounds that we have here in richmond. This is why i say the richmond is a great place for families. The theatre is a treasure in our neighborhood. It has been around for a very long time. Is one of our two neighborhood theatres that we have here. I moved here when i was 1959 when i was two years old. We would always go here. I love these neighborhood theatres. It is one of the places that has not only a landmark in the Richmond District, but also in San Francisco. Small theatres showing one or two films. A unique they are unique also to the neighborhood and San Francisco. Where we are today is the heart of the Richmond District. With what is unique is that it is also Small Businesses. There is a different retail here it is mom and pop opening up businesses. And providing for the neighborhood. This is what we love about the streets. The cora door starts on clement street and goes all the way down to the end of clement where you will see Small Businesses even towards 32nd. At the core of it is right here between here and 20 tenth avenue. When we see this variety of stores offered here, it is very unique then of the any other part of San Francisco. There is traditional irish music which you dont get hardly anywhere in San Francisco. Some places have this long legacy of serving ice cream and being a hangout for families to have a sunday afternoon ice cream. And then also, we see grocery stores. And also these restaurants that are just new here, but also thriving. [ ] we are seeing restaurants being switched over by hand, new owners, but what we are seeing is a vibrancy of clement street still being recaptured within new businesses that are coming in. That is a really great thing to see. I dont know when i started to shop here, but it was probably a very, very long time ago. I like to cook a lot but i like to cook chinese food. The market is the place i like to come to once a year. Once i like about the market as it is very affordable. It has Fresh Produce and fresh meat. Also, seafood. But they also offer a large selection of condiments and sauces and noodles. A variety of rice that they have is tremendous. I dont thank you can find a variety like that anywhere else. Hi. I am kevin wong. I am the manager. In 1989 we move from chinatown to Richmond District. We have opened for a bit, over 29 years. We carry products from thailand, japan, indonesia, vietnam, singapore and india. We try to keep Everything Fresh daily. So a customer can get the best out a bit. Normally during crab season in november, this is the first place i hit. Because they have really just really fresh crab. This is something my family really likes for me to make. Also, from my traditional chinese food, i love to make a kale soup. They cut it to the size they really want. I am probably here once a week. Im very familiar with the aisles and they know everyone who is a cashier cashier here i know when people come into a market such as this, it looks like an asian supermarkets, which it is and sometimes it can be intimidating. We dont speak the language and many of the labels are in chinese, you may not know what to buy or if it is the proper ingredients for the recipe are trying to make. I do see a lot of people here with a recipe card or sometimes with a magazine and they are looking for specific items. The staff here is very helpful. I speak very little chinese here myself. Thinks that im not sure about, i asked the clerk his and i say is this what i need . Is this what i should be making . And they actually really helped me. They will bring me to the aisle and say this is battery. They are very knowledgeable. Very friendly. I think they are here to serve not only the Asian Community but to serve all communities in the Richmond District and in San Francisco. [ ] what is wonderful about living here is that even though our july is a very foggy and overcast, best neighborhood, the sleepy part outside on the west side is so rich with history, but also with all the amenities that are offered. [ ] good afternoon and welcome to the land use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco board of supervisors for today monday july 15. Our clerk is ms. Major. Please make sure to silence all cell phones