I
104TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 3628
To establish the Lower East Side Tenement Museum National Historic Site,
and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 12, 1996
Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ (for herself and Ms. MOLINARI) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on Resources
A BILL
To establish the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
National Historic Site, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Lower East Side Tene-
ment 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 immi-
grants 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 im-
migrants;
(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 associ-
ated with the immigrant experience in America; and
(5) the National Park Service found the Lower
East Side Tenement Museum to be nationally sig-
nificant, 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;
American sites, buildings, objects, and antiquities of na-
tional significance, and for other purposes’’, approved Au-
gust 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 na-
tional historic site.
SEC. 5. COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT.
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary may enter into a
cooperative agreement with the Lower East Side Tene-
ment 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, inter-
pret, 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 ac-
cess at all reasonable times to all public portions of the
property covered by the agreement for the purpose of con-
ducting 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.
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