[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 97 (Thursday, June 27, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7185-S7187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. D'AMATO (for himself and Mr. Moynihan):
  S. 1913. A bill to establish the Lower East Side Tenement Museum 
National Historic Site, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Energy and Natural Resources.


 The Lower East Side Tenement Museum National Historic Site Act of 1996

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, most of us have heard the stories of how 
the great wave of immigrants of generations ago entered our Nation, but 
few really know what happened to them after Ellis Island. At the Lower 
East Side Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street in New York City, one is 
able to follow the lives of the immigrants beyond the first hours on 
our shores. The museum tells their history, displays their courage and 
showcases their values in an interpretive setting that brings the 
visitor back to an era from which many of us came. The museum presents 
to many of us an awareness of our ancestral roots that we may never 
have known existed. Through the legislation being introduced by my 
friend Senator Moynihan and I, the museum will be declared a national 
historic site and able to affiliate itself with the National Park 
Service. Enactment of this legislation will bestow national recognition 
on the humble beginnings of millions of our ancestors.
  The Tenement Museum is unique in that it not only traces the quality 
of life inside the tenement, but presents a picture of the immigrant's 
outside world as well. Due to the cramped and dingy nature of the 
tenement, as much time as possible was spent outside. Thus, in order to 
fully explore their lives, it is essential to look toward their work, 
their houses of worship, their organizations, and their entertainment. 
The museum incorporates the experiences of yesteryear's immigrants and 
interprets them for today's generations. Besides on-site programs, the 
museum utilizes the surrounding neighborhood; an area which continues 
to this day in its role as a receiver of immigrants.
  Throughout our Nation we have preserved, remembered and cherished 
places of national significance and beauty. We have put enormous energy 
in maintaining homes of noted Americans and protecting vast areas of 
wilderness. What we do not have, though, is a monument to the socalled 
``ordinary citizen.'' The Tenement Museum will fill that role.

[[Page S7186]]

  It is unlikely that many of those who lived in buildings like the one 
at 97 Orchard Street felt that they were special. Rather, they were 
probably grateful for the chance to come to America to try to make a 
better life for themselves and their families. Given the living and 
working conditions that we now take for granted, the language and 
cultural obstacles they had to overcome, we should be in awe of their 
ability to take hold of an opportunity and not only survive, but 
thrive. It is their contributions to society in the face of 
overwhelming obstacles that defined an era and established an ethic 
that survives to this day. It is their spirit that we admire, and that, 
in retrospect, makes these otherwise ordinary individuals special. The 
Tenement Museum is their monument, and as their descendants, it is ours 
as well.
  Congress has an opportunity to recognize the pioneer spirit of our 
ancestors and deliver it to future generations of Americans. The museum 
reminds us all of an important and often forgotten chapter in our 
immigrant heritage, mainly, that millions of families made their first 
stand in our Nation not in a log cabin or farm house or mansion, but in 
a city tenement. Designating the Lower East Side Tenement Museum a 
National Historic Site and granting it affiliated area status within 
the National Park Service will shed light on that chapter in our 
history while linking it to the chain of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis 
Islands and Castle Clinton in the story of our urban immigrant 
heritage. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Moynihan and me in 
cosponsoring this bill, and I urge its speedy consideration by the 
Senate.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1913

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Lower East Side Tenement 
     Museum National Historic Site Act of 1996''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
       (1) the Lower East Side Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard 
     Street is an outstanding survivor of the vast number of 
     humble buildings that housed immigrants to New York City 
     during the greatest wave of immigration in American history;
       (2) the Museum is well suited to represent a profound 
     social movement involving great numbers of unexceptional but 
     courageous people;
       (3) no single identifiable neighborhood in the United 
     States absorbed a comparable number of immigrants;
       (4) the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is dedicated to 
     interpreting immigrant life on the Lower East Side and its 
     importance to United States history, within a neighborhood 
     long associated with the immigrant experience in America; and
       (5) the National Park Service found the Lower East Side 
     Tenement Museum to be nationally significant, suitable, and 
     feasible for inclusion in the National Park System.
       (b) Purposes.--The purposes of this Act are--
       (1) to ensure the preservation, maintenance, and 
     interpretation of this site and to interpret in the site and 
     in the surrounding neighborhood, the themes of early tenement 
     life, the housing reform movement, and tenement architecture 
     in the United States;
       (2) to ensure the continuation of the Museum at this site, 
     the preservation of which is necessary for the continued 
     interpretation of the nationally significant immigrant 
     phenomenon associated with the New York City's Lower East 
     Side, and its role in the history of immigration to the 
     United States; and
       (3) to enhance the interpretation of the Castle Clinton 
     National Historic Monument and Ellis Island National Historic 
     Monument through cooperation with the Museum.

     SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

       As used in this Act:
       (1) Historic site.--The term ``historic site'' means the 
     Lower East Side Tenement Museum designated as a national 
     historic site by section 4.
       (2) Museum.--The term ``Museum'' means the Lower East Side 
     Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street, New York City, in the 
     State of New York, and related facilities owned or operated 
     by the Museum.
       (3) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary 
     of the Interior.

     SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF HISTORIC SITE.

       To further the purposes of this Act and the Act entitled 
     ``An act to provide for the preservation of historic American 
     sites, buildings, objects, and antiquities of national 
     significance, and for other purposes'', approved August 21, 
     1935 (16 U.S.C. 461 et seq.), the Lower East Side Tenement 
     Museum at 97 Orchard Street, in the city of New York, State 
     of New York, is designated as a national historic site.

     SEC. 5. COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT.

       (a) In General.--The Secretary may enter into a cooperative 
     agreement with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to carry 
     out this Act.
       (b) Technical and Financial Assistance.--The agreement may 
     include provisions by which the Secretary will provide--
       (1) technical assistance to mark, restore, interpret, 
     operate, and maintain the historic site; and
       (2) financial assistance to the Museum to mark, interpret, 
     and restore the historic site, including the making of 
     preservation-related capital improvements and repairs.
       (c) Additional Provisions.--The agreement may also contain 
     provisions that permit the Secretary acting through the 
     National Park Service, to have a right of access at all 
     reasonable times to all public portions of the property 
     covered by the agreement for the purpose of conducting 
     visitors through the properties and interpreting the portions 
     to the public.

     SEC. 6. APPROPRIATIONS.

       There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are 
     necessary to carry out this Act.

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my friend and colleague 
Senator D'Amato in introducing a bill that will authorize a small but 
most significant addition to the National Park System by designating 
the Lower East Side Tenement Museum a national historic site. For 150 
years New York City's Lower East Side has been the most vibrant, 
populous, and famous immigrant neighborhood in the Nation. From the 
first waves of Irish and German immigrants to Italians and Eastern 
European Jews to the Asian, Latin, and Caribbean immigrants arriving 
today, the Lower East Side has provided millions their first American 
home.
  For many of them that home was a brick tenement; six or so stories, 
no elevator, maybe no plumbing, maybe no windows, a business on the 
ground floor, and millions of our forbearers upstairs. The Nation has 
with great pride preserved log cabins, farm houses, and other symbols 
of our agrarian roots. We have reopened Ellis Island to commemorate and 
display the first stop for 12 million immigrants who arrived in New 
York City.
  Until now we have not preserved a sample of urban, working class life 
as part of the immigrant experience. For many of those who disembarked 
on Ellis Island the next stop was a tenement on the Lower East Side, 
such as the one at 97 Orchard Street. It is here that the Lower East 
Side Tenement Museum will show us what that next stop was like.
  The tenement at 97 Orchard was built in the 1860s, during the first 
phase of tenement construction. It provided housing for 20 families on 
a plot of land planned for a single family residence. Each floor had 
four three-room apartments, each of which had two windows in one of the 
rooms and none in the others. The privies were out back, as was the 
spigot that provided water for everyone. The public bathhouse was down 
the street.
  In 1900 this block was the most crowded per acre on earth. Conditions 
improved after the passage of the New York Tenement House Act of 1901, 
though the crowding remained. Two toilets were installed on each floor. 
A skylight was installed over the stairway and interior windows were 
cut in the walls to allow some light throughout each apartment. For the 
first time the ground floor became commercial space. In 1918 
electricity was installed. Further improvements were mandated in 1935, 
but the owner chose to board the building up rather than follow the new 
regulations. It remained boarded up for 60 years until the idea of a 
museum took hold.
  The Tenement Museum will keep at least one apartment in the 
dilapidated condition in which it was found when reopened, to show 
visitors the process of urban archeology. Others will be restored to 
show how real families lived at different periods in the building's 
history. At a nearby site there will be interpretive programs to better 
explain the larger experience of gaining a foothold on America in the 
Lower East Side of New York.
  There are also plans for programmatic ties with Ellis Island and its 
precursor, Castle Clinton. And the Museum plans to play an active role 
in the immigrant community around it,

[[Page S7187]]

further integrating the past and present immigrant experience on the 
Lower East Side.
  This bill designates the Tenement Museum a national historic site. It 
also authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to enter into cooperative 
agreements with the Museum. Such agreements could include technical or 
financial assistance to help restore, operate, maintain, or interpret 
the site. Agreements can also be made with the Statue of Liberty/Ellis 
Island and Castle Clinton to help with the interpretation of life as an 
immigrant. It will be a productive partnership.
  Mr. President, I believe the Tenement Museum provides an outstanding 
opportunity to preserve and present an important stage of the immigrant 
experience and the move for social change in our cities at the turn of 
the century. I know of no better place than 97 Orchard Street to do so, 
and no other place in the National Park System doing so already. I look 
forward to the realization of this grand idea, and I ask my colleagues 
for their support.
                                 ______