[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 7, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E29]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       ``THE PATERSON GREAT FALLS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK ACT''

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BILL PASCRELL, JR.

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 7, 2009

  Mr. PASCRELL. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure today to introduce the 
``Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park Act'' as my first act 
in the 111th Congress. This bipartisan legislation was approved by the 
House in October 2007, and would designate a National Park at the 
majestic Great Falls in Paterson, NJ. I urge my colleagues to pass this 
legislation as soon as possible.
  Fifteen miles west of New York City, the Great Falls was the second 
largest waterfall in colonial America. No other natural wonder in 
America has played such an important role in our nation's historic 
quest for freedom and prosperity. At the Great Falls, Alexander 
Hamilton conceived and implemented a plan to harness the force of water 
to power the new industries that would secure our economic 
independence.
  Hamilton told Congress and the American people that at the Great 
Falls he would begin implementation of his ambitious strategy to 
transform a rural agrarian society dependent upon slavery into a modern 
economy based on freedom. True to Hamilton's vision, Paterson became a 
great manufacturing city, producing the Colt revolver, the first 
submarine, the aircraft engine for the first trans-Atlantic flight, 
more locomotives than any city in the Nation, and more silk than any 
city in the world.
  New Jersey's Great Falls is the only National Historic District that 
includes both a National Natural Resource and a National Historic 
Landmark. In a special Bicentennial speech in Paterson with the 
spectacular natural beauty of the Great Falls in the background, the 
late President Gerald R. Ford said, ``We can see the Great Falls as a 
symbol of the industrial might which helps to make America the most 
powerful Nation in the world.''
  Preeminent Hamilton biographers, an esteemed former Smithsonian 
Institution curator, the former chief of the National Park Service 
Historic American Engineering Record, and distinguished professors at 
Yale, Princeton, Harvard, NYU, Brown and other universities have filed 
letters with the National Park Service strongly recommending a National 
Historical Park for the Great Falls Historic District. Editorial 
boards, Federal, State, and local officials and community groups have 
also endorsed the campaign to award a National Park Service designation 
to the Falls.
  Scholars have concluded that Pierre L'Enfant's innovative water power 
system in Paterson, and many factories built later, constitute the 
finest remaining collection of engineering and architectural structures 
representing each stage of America's progress from a weak agrarian 
society to a leader in the global economy. It is a little known fact 
that L'Enfant was hired by Hamilton to create Paterson as the sister 
city to Washington, DC, having completed his plan of Washington only 
months before arriving in Paterson.
  Madam Speaker, Congress must act now to pass this vital piece of 
legislation, so that we may fully recognize these cultural and historic 
landmarks that have played such a seminal role in America's history.

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