Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul and National Urban League Announce Progress on Urban Empowerment Center at Topping Off Celebration in Harlem

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul joined leaders of the National Urban League for a Topping Off Celebration to mark the progress of the Urban Empowerment Center, the League's future headquarters in Harlem. The event took place on the building's Fourth Floor, which will house the Urban Civil Rights Museum, New York's first museum dedicated to civil rights.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. First of all, I'm taking this out. I'm a little vertically challenged if you haven't noticed. Okay, let's just accept that fact. Mark, this has got to be the most exciting, innovative project, one of a kind in our entire country's history. And that is not hyperbole. That is a statement of fact. So, I thank you and people like Tim Murphy, and your board and others who had this vision. I mean, people during a pandemic, what are you thinking about? Well, they're thinking about how do we put Harlem on the map like never, ever before because everybody around the world knows Harlem. I mean, it's a very cool place. Let's just get that out there. But, to be able to bring people here to this one place where the critically important work, you know, leading our civil rights movement forward through the work of the National Urban League. To have that centered here is a huge point of pride for us in Harlem. So, we're here to say, welcome home, welcome back.

But also, to Meredith Marshall, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of BRP Companies. This is an extraordinary project, too. I think you're going to get a lot more business after people see what you've done here, so this is good for you and to all the men and women who are building this. Again, it started during the heat of a pandemic. I mean, we're already 17 stories. It didn't happen overnight. This has been going on, the hardworking men and women showed up during a pandemic. That is also an extraordinary story to tell. So, I thank them.

Also, I thank Jennifer Scott, the Executive Director and Chief Curator for the museum. I'm going to have my own thoughts on what should go in the museum, just in case you want to know. I want to make sure that when we talk about the northern states, we're also talking about northern New York, okay, because I come from western New York and we brag about us being the place where the NAACP, the Niagara Movement was founded. And that was a place where people came and helped to freed slaves get across the Niagara River to Canada for a long time. And so, I'm going to make sure that you take care of my hometown of Buffalo and show off up here. Okay, if that's okay with you. Let's get that done.

Harriet Tubman spent 50 years of her life after she worked to free slaves. She lived up in Auburn, New York. Frederick Douglass, you know, buried not far from Susan B.

Anthony, same cemetery, they died two years apart. So, all these stories, I can't wait to showcase here as we connect our state and get to brag about, not just the Harlem story and the leaders who took us to a different place in our nation, but also the entire state. So, it's not going to put that plug in right there.

You know, I love projects that incorporate affordable housing because this is and will continue to be a challenge unless we find creative ways to incorporate new housing projects and supportive housing, over 50, supportive housing. And what is supportive housing? It just houses people who've been knocked down. They need the extra hand. They need someone who cares about them. And whether they have a substance abuse problem or mental health problems, or sometimes it's our veterans, sometimes it's LGBTQ seniors, there's populations that benefit when we are smart about how we spend our money and lift them up, literally through the place they live. And also the retail shopping, I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Great place to have all the shopping opportunities here. You know, when you bring businesses that are seen all over America and all those suburbs, you bring them to a neighborhood like this, it says, you matter too. You know, your people deserve - your residents deserve to have the same opportunities as they do out in Westchester for shopping. So, why not bring it all together because it's elevating the psychology of a community as well. That's what you do with a project like this.

You say it's the headquarters, the most significant civil rights organization, an organization that lifts people up out of poverty, addresses the challenges of urban living every single day. You're here, all the talent that's around that, the smart people that are solving problems are coming here, but then you say, but people want to live here. People want to shop here, and let's have a place where people could learn, not just about the past activism in civil rights, but a place where people say, I want to be them. It's going to inspire the next generation of civil rights activism when people come here and see this museum. So, this will cement this area as a hub of business and culture. Really proud that we got here with $110 million of state resources. I have a feeling I'm going to be asked for more, but that's what everybody does. Am I right about that? I know, I know. I know how this goes.

But this is a celebration. This is a whole speech here. Thank you, staff, for writing a great speech. But this is about the people, the people in this room, the doers, the believers, the visionaries who come together at this milestone and say, "We're halfway there." And I'm so looking forward to coming back because I have a lot of experience cutting ribbons. I want to come back and cut this ribbon. I'm going to come back and celebrate this. So, thank you, and congratulations to everybody who got us this far today.