The Michael J. Kirwan Educational Television Center, also known as KVZK-TV or KVZK Building, is a historic and current television center in
Utulei, American Samoa
Utulei or Utulei is a village in Maoputasi County, in the Eastern District of Tutuila, the main island of American Samoa. Utulei is traditionally considered to be a section of Fagatogo village, the legislative capital of American Samoa, and is l ...
. It is named for U.S. congressman
Michael J. Kirwan
Michael Joseph Kirwan (December 2, 1886 – July 27, 1970) was an American Democratic Party (United States), Democratic politician from Ohio who served as a United States House of Representatives, Representative to the United States Congress ...
, from Ohio, who took an interest in the development of American Samoa, and was instrumental in securing funding for a wide variety of improvements in the territory's infrastructure. It is a utilitarian concrete structure, roughly cruciform in shape, with a corrugated metal gable roof, located behind the Department of Education building on Route 1 in Utulei. It was built in 1964 as part of an innovative initiative to reform American Samoa's then-primitive educational facilities by broadcasting lessons from a central facility to the territory's remote schools. This initiative resulted in the widespread electrification of the territory's islands, and the construction of roads and new schools, and was widely regarded as a model for improving education in underdeveloped parts of the world. By the 1970s use of the broadcast facilities for education declined.
[ (31 pages, with 2 photos from 2009)]
The building was listed on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
on October 23, 2009.
The listing was announced as the featured listing in the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
's weekly list of November 13, 2009.
See also
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References
Buildings and structures in American Samoa
Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in American Samoa
Buildings and structures completed in 1964
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