[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18455]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 18455]]

               TRIBUTE TO SENATOR DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized 
for 2 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that a non-New Yorker has been 
able to get a word in edgewise this morning. I come to the floor as a 
fourth generation Washingtonian to pay tribute to a great New Yorker 
and a great American. Actually, I was a New Yorker. I was Chair of the 
New York City Human Rights Commission and I was the executive assistant 
to Mayor John Lindsey. The Senator introduced me when I was nominated 
to be the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
  But I come this morning because Washingtonians would want me to come 
and other Americans would want me to come to thank the Senator for what 
he has done for the Nation's Capital, and, therefore, for his country. 
This is only one of the unique roles the Senator has managed to carve 
out in 25 years in the Senate.
  As an African American, I also thank him for the prescient role he 
played in pointing out difficulties in the black family, a position 
that has now been embraced by black leadership themselves. As an 
academic, I thank him for his work as a public intellectual. I fished 
out only two of the many books he has written from my bookcase this 
morning. How he has managed to write books and be a Senator, this 
academic still does not understand.
  The lasting monument of this great man, I must say to you, for this 
city and the country, is surely his work in resurrecting Pennsylvania 
Avenue. From the Capitol to the White House, instead of a slum, the 
American people now see an avenue the equivalent of the Champs Elysee. 
It would not have been that way were it not for the determination and 
the sheer persistence of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
  We will not have to rename The Avenue for you, Senator, in order to 
remember you. We will remember your work on Pennsylvania Avenue by our 
ongoing work and by your remarks in your Jefferson lecture at the 
University of Virginia in April, where you said, ``In all a reassuring 
tale. An urban design, indivisible from a political-constitutional 
purpose, endured during two centuries and has now substantially 
prevailed. Pennsylvania Avenue lively, friendly and inviting. Yet of a 
sudden closed. Just so. In 1995, blockades went up at 14th Street and 
at 16th Street in front of the White House. Blockades and block houses. 
Armed Guards.''
  We will open The Avenue for you, Senator.

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