[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 143 (Thursday, September 14, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1786]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  THE LOWER EAST SIDE TENEMENT MUSEUM

                                 ______


                        HON. NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 14, 1995
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I rise before you today to announce the introduction 
of a bill that will grant the Lower East Side Tenenment Museum, located 
at 97 Orchard Street in my District, affiliated status with the 
National Park Service. I have introduced this piece of legislation in 
conjunction with my colleague and fellow New Yorker, Congresswoman 
Susan Molinari, and I trust our efforts will lead to the prompt passage 
of this bill.
  Located on the island of Manhattan, today's Lower East Side remains 
what it has been for over 150 years: a vibrant, ethnic, working-class 
enclave welcoming America's newest residents. The earlier European 
communities which gave distinctive flavors to the neighborhood have 
been replaced by Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean residents. The 
immigrant lifestyle, a rich weave of interlacing threads, plays out its 
daily drama in an environment largely unchanged in many ways from the 
Lower East Side of 100 years ago. In numberous places 19th century 
brick tenements still line the streets--housing businesses at the 
street level, and families in the floors above. The Lower East Side 
maintains a distinct identity, whose present character harkens back to 
a Big Apple of yesteryear.
  As a nation, we take pride in commemorating important contributions 
to our culture. Monuments to illustrious leaders abound; icons such as 
the Statue of Liberty pay homage to our ideals; log cabins and 
farmhouses stand as symbols of our agrarian roots. Until recently, 
however, the urban, working-class immigrant element of our heritage 
remained a historically important, yet undercelebrated sector of the 
American experience. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum strives to 
fill that niche, and Congresswoman Molinari and I aim to help 
facilitate that task.
  The museum is believed to be the Nation's first to be specifically 
devoted to the urban immigrant experience. It is housed in an actual 
historic tenement, and its board members and staff have pursued the 
museum's mission to interpret immigrant life in the Lower East Side--
and its importance to U.S.
 history. The museum's work has extended into the present social fabric 
of the Lower East Side, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum has 
quickly blossomed into a nationally renowned institution. Its promotion 
of: tolerance, ethnic diversity, cultural, and intergenerational 
interaction, and urban understanding have made the museum a valued part 
of my community, of New York and of this country as a whole. In no 
other museum do the past, the present, and the future come together so 
perfectly, and in a few others can Americans learn so much about their 
past, while reflecting on the issues they must grapple daily.

  The idea of a tenement museum grew out of the social history 
movement. The latter holds that the history of ordinary people is an 
important component of an accurate historical record. In the words of 
the museum's founder and president, Ruth J. Abram,

       We've saved log cabins, farmhouses, and the living spaces 
     of the rich and famous. These efforts have greatly enhanced 
     our understanding of ourselves as a nation. But we've never 
     saved an example of the 19th century urban tenement. Without 
     it, our perception of America, and particularly her 
     immigrant, working-class past, is skewed and incomplete.

  It is this very vision that has earned the museum such praise, and 
that has prompted our legislative proposal.
  In 1988, the newly formed museum determined to preserve a tenement 
and selected 97 Orchard Street. Scanning the continuous wall of brick 
tenements along Orchard Street, it would be difficult to differentiate 
the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. It looks like all its neighbors up 
and down Orchard and the surrounding streets. But number 97 is 
remarkable. While two lower floors continued to operate as commercial 
space, the top four floors were sealed for decades, until the discovery 
by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Rooms, wall paper, plumbing, 
and lighting are preserved as they were left almost 60 years ago. Due 
in part, to its exceptional degree of integrity, the building conveys a 
vivid sense of the conditions experienced by its tenants--conditions 
shared by millions of tenement dwellers throughout the city.
  The building also serves as an excellent material record of the 
results of early housing reform legislation in New York City, 
particularly the Tenement House Act of 1901. While living conditions on 
the Lower East Side declined continually throughout the 19th century, 
by 1900 they were so deplorable that the city passed its farthest 
reaching laws to regulate housing. Changes to 97 Orchard Street in 
1905, which are a direct result of those laws, survive today and are 
still clearly chronicled in the tenement's historic fabric. The history 
of standards for tenement plumbing, lighting, and ventilation, and 
means of egress, are contained within its walls.
  The legislation we have introduced today is a bipartisan effort at 
allowing this marvelous museum to expand its functions, and while 
granting it affiliated status with the National Park Service will not 
cause the latter to incur any costs, it will allow the museum to 
complement the historical trilogy of Castle Clinton, Ellis Island, and 
the Statue of Liberty.
  The legislation has been introduced by Senators Moynihan and D'Amato 
in the Senate, and promises to clear that Chamber during the present 
session. The bill is supported by the New York State and city 
governments, as well as by civic leaders, small business owners, 
organized labor, the Wall Street community, and the National Park 
Service. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join 
Congresswoman Molinari and me in sponsoring this historic piece of 
legislation, and giving the Lower East Side Tenement Museum its 
rightful place in the annals of our great Nation's history.


                          ____________________