{"id":97084,"date":"2025-12-16T18:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T18:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/97084\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T18:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T18:42:10","slug":"san-francisco-honors-late-mayor-ed-lee-for-steady-leadership-through-boom-and-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/97084\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco honors late Mayor Ed Lee for steady leadership through boom and bust"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bust of former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was unveiled at City Hall this past Friday by his family, former colleagues, and local elected officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot to the family to see our father honored in this way,\u201d said Lee\u2019s daughter Tania in a speech. \u201cWe knew how much he loved this city, and it\u2019s amazing to see how much the city loved him back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee served as San Francisco\u2019s mayor from 2011 until 2017, when he died of a heart attack. He was the first Chinese American to serve as the city\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n

Dozens of politicians attended the celebration, including several members of the Board of Supervisors, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, state Controller Malia Cohen, and state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\"\"FILE: The-San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee presents Miles Scott, also known as Batkid, with the key to the city outside City Hall on Nov. 15, 2013. Lee, who died in 2017, served as the city\u2019s 43rd mayor, and the first of Chinese American descent. (Rob Snavely \/Make-a-Wish via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

Former San Francisco mayors Willie Brown, London Breed, and Art Agnos were also in attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd Lee rolled up his sleeves, brought diverse groups of people together, and got it done,\u201d Brown said in a speech. \u201cHe led the city, first, through one of the nation\u2019s worst recessions and then through an unprecedented time of growth and change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bronze bust of Lee\u2019s smiling face sits on top of a towering, 9-foot-tall marble pedestal in the hallway of City Hall\u2019s Polk Street entrance.<\/p>\n

For attendees, Lee\u2019s bust is more than a sculpture honoring the former mayor. It is also a symbol against racism, since his bust replaced the bust of former Mayor James Phelan, who promoted anti-Chinese sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd Lee rolled up his sleeves, brought diverse groups of people together, and got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willie Brown, former San Francisco mayor<\/p>\n

Phelan was the mayor of San Francisco from 1897 to 1902. He supported extending the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882<\/a>, a federal law that banned the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for a period of 10 years.<\/p>\n

His bust was recently removed from the spot where Lee\u2019s new bust sits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe transform a symbol of discrimination into one of dignity and hope, and bend the arc of the moral universe more toward justice,\u201d Pelosi said in a speech at the unveiling.<\/p>\n

Mayor Daniel Lurie, who worked with Lee in preparation to host Super Bowl 50 in 2016 in Santa Clara, remembered Lee for his character.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I worked alongside Mayor Lee, I saw how genuine he was, how hard he worked, and how deeply he cared for San Francisco,\u201d Lurie said in a speech. \u201cTo the Lee family: thank you for letting San Francisco share a part of his story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bust of former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was unveiled at City Hall this past Friday by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[18762,53201,6702,53202,53203,53204,13469,51188,93,4306,418,14552,51190,28881,16424,53205,8669,5392,14263,101,53206,103,102,53207,104,106,105,53208],"class_list":["post-97084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-art-agnos","tag-asian-american-history","tag-board-of-supervisors","tag-chinese-american-leaders","tag-chinese-exclusion-act","tag-civic-legacy","tag-discrimination","tag-ed-lee","tag-featured","tag-featured-news","tag-history","tag-honor","tag-james-phelan","tag-london-breed","tag-mayor-daniel-lurie","tag-mayors","tag-nancy-pelosi","tag-public-art","tag-racial-justice","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-city-hall","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-politics","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-willie-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}