Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Preservation Act

Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Preservation Act
Great Seal of the United States
Full title To direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, as a unit of the National Park System.
Introduced in 113th United States Congress
Introduced on April 11, 2013
Sponsored by Rep. Hakeem S. Jeffries (D, NY-8)
Number of Co-Sponsors 2
Effects and Codifications
Act(s) affected National Park System General Authorities Act,
U.S.C. section(s) affected 16 U.S.C. § 1a–5
Agencies affected United States Department of the Interior
Legislative history

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Preservation Act (H.R. 1501) is a bill that would direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn as a unit of the National Park System (NPS).[1] The study would look at what it would cost to run the park and how its proposed designation as a National Park would affect the surrounding area.[2]

The bill was introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress.

Background

One of four bronze eagles by Adolph Weinman at the restored monument site.

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, is a memorial to the more than 11,500 American prisoners of war who died in captivity aboard sixteen British prison ships during the American Revolutionary War.[3] The remains of a small fraction of those who died on the ships are interred in a crypt beneath its base. The ships included the HMS Jersey, the Scorpion, the Hope, the Falmouth, the Stromboli, Hunter, and others.[4][5]

During the Revolutionary War, the British maintained a series of prison ships in the New York Harbor and jails on the shore for captured prisoners of war.[6][7] Due to brutal conditions, more Americans died in British jails and prison ships in New York Harbor than in all the battles of the American Revolutionary War.[8][9]

Their remains were first gathered and interred in 1808. In 1867 landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park and Prospect Park, were engaged to prepare a new design for Washington Park as well as a new crypt for the remains of the prison ship martyrs.[10] In 1873, after urban growth hemmed in that site near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the remains were moved and re-interred in a crypt beneath a small monument. Funds were raised for a larger monument, which was designed by noted architect Stanford White. Constructed of granite, its single Doric column 149 feet (45 m) in height sits over the crypt at the top of a 100-foot (30 m)-wide 33 step staircase. At the top of the column is an eight-ton bronze brazier, a funeral urn, by sculptor Adolf Weinman. President-elect William Howard Taft delivered the principal address when the monument was dedicated in 1908.

Provisions of the bill

This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Research Service, a public domain source.[1]

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Preservation Act would direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn as a unit of the National Park System (NPS).[1]

The bill would require the study to include: (1) an analysis of operational issues that should be considered if the Monument were to be designated as an NPS unit; (2) an analysis of the feasibility of administering the Monument, considering its size, configuration, and other factors including an annual cost estimate; (3) an analysis of the economic, educational, and other impacts of the designation of the Monument as an NPS unit; (4) an analysis of the effect of such designation on existing commercial and recreational activities, and on the authorization, construction, operation, maintenance, or improvement of energy production and transmission infrastructure, and the authority of state and local governments to manage those activities; and (5) an identification of any authorities, including condemnation, that will compel or permit the Secretary to influence or participate in local land use decisions (such as zoning) or place restrictions on non-federal lands if the Monument is designated as an NPS unit.[1]

The bill would require, upon commencement of the study, owners of private property in or adjacent to the Monument to be notified of the study's commencement and scope.[1]

Congressional Budget Office report

This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Budget Office, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Natural Resources on March 13, 2014. This is a public domain source.[11]

H.R. 1501 would require the National Park Service (NPS) to conduct a study of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in New York City to determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the monument as a unit of the National Park System. Based on information provided by the NPS and assuming the availability of appropriated funds, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that carrying out the study required by H.R. 1501 would cost about $150,000. Enacting H.R. 1501 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.[11]

H.R. 1501 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.[11]

Procedural history

The Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Preservation Act was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on April 11, 2013 by Rep. Hakeem S. Jeffries (D, NY-8).[12] It was referred to the United States House Committee on Natural Resources and the United States House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation. On April 1, 2014, the committee reported the bill (amended) alongside House Report 113-392.[12] The House voted on April 28, 2014 to pass the bill in a voice vote. The bill was received in the United States Senate on April 29, 2014 and referred to the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.[12]

Debate and discussion

The Department of the Interior supported the bill.[13] The National Park Service said that "the monument commemorates the sacrifice over more than 11,000 patriots during the American Revolution."[13]

Rep. Yvette Clarke, who co-sponsored the bill, argued that the bill was a good idea because "this monument commemorates not only the sacrifices of soldiers in the Revolutionary War who dedicated themselves to the cause of liberty, but a reminder than even in wartime we must protect basic human rights. These thousands of deaths were an atrocity that should never occur again."[14]

Rep. Jeffries, who introduced the bill, said that "as one of America's largest revolutionary war burial sites and in tribute to the patriots that lost their lives fighting for our nation's independence, this monument deserves to be considered as a unit of the National Park Service."[15]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "H.R. 1501 – Summary". United States Congress. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  2. ↑ Leviner, Emily (28 April 2014). "Legislative Digest on H.R. 1501". House Republicans. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  3. ↑ Martin, Douglas. "Resurrecting Patriots, and Their Park; Shrine to Revolution's Martyrs Is Part of Fort Greene Renewal" New York Times (September 23, 1995). Accessed January 17, 2012
  4. ↑ Cray, Robert E., Jr.. "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead: Revolutionary Memory and the Politics of Sepulture in the Early Republic, 1776–1808," Third series, vol. 56, no. 3, (July 1999), pp.568–9
  5. ↑ Wilson, James Grant. The memorial History of the City of New-York, From its First Settlement to the Year 1892, vol. IV New York:New-York History Company, 1893, pp.8–9. Accessed: January 22, 2012
  6. ↑ Andros, Thomas. "The old Jersey captive: Or, A narrative of the captivity of Thomas Andros...on board the old Jersey prison ship at New York, 1781. In a series of letters to a friend." W. Peirce. 1833.
  7. ↑ Lang, Patrick J.. "The horrors of the English prison ships, 1776 to 1783, and the barbarous treatment of the American patriots imprisoned on them." Society of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick, 1939.
  8. ↑ Banks, James Lenox. "Prison ships in the Revolution: New facts in regard to their management." 1903
  9. ↑ Hanford, William H. "Incidents of the Revolution: Recollections of the Old Sugar House Prison" New York Times (January 15, 1852). Accessed=February 11, 2011
  10. ↑ "Fort Greene Park: Prison Ship Martyrs Monument: History" on the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation website
  11. 1 2 3 "CBO – H.R. 1501". Congressional Budget Office. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 "H.R. 1501 – All Actions". United States Congress. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  13. 1 2 "The Morning Report – March 17, 2014". National Park Service. 17 March 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  14. ↑ "Congresswoman Clarke Urges Designation Prison Ship Martyrs Monument as a National Monument". Office of Yvette D. Clarke. 29 April 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  15. ↑ "Bill To Preserve Brooklyn's Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Passes The House Of Representatives". Office of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. 29 April 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
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