• College of Charleston Student Activities Building/Gymnasium - Charleston SC
    On 27 October 1937, the Radcliffe-King House was pulled down for the new College of Charleston Student Activities Building/Gymnasium building. The new building was funded by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, and was designed by Simons & Lapham, a well known Charleston, South Carolina architectural firm, which participated in may New Deal projects. The building included some rooms for dorms for out of county basketball players who attended the    College of Charleston. See Blevins (2001): https://livingnewdeal.org/wp-content/uploads/gravity_forms/5-1524db4e8f93549db7fec5d73ae429b8/2018/01/CofC-Gym-pages-98-101.pdf In 1994-1995 the building was renovated. The gymnasium’s rubber basketball floor was removed for a modern floor, an indoor walking track was suspended from the ceiling,...
  • County Hall (former) - Charleston SC
    What is now Palace Apartments started out as Williamson Mill (a cotton mill)—built in 1902. Sometime after that it was bought and plans were made to convert the building into a county multi-use building (basketball, boxing, tennis, indoor track, concerts, dances, etc.). WPA work included removing the upper part of the building, new roof installation, and upgraded utilities. The WPA spent $250,000 dollars on the project, which is about $4 million in 2013 dollars, so the conversion work must have been extensive. In later years, the county building became a popular venue for professional wrestling.
  • Municipal Yacht Basin - Charleston SC
    What was then known as the Municipal Yacht Basin was constructed as a New Deal project, undertaken by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). As part of the broader development: "The City of Charleston continued to explore opportunities for using the as a seaplane terminal. In the spring of that year, flights from Germany to Charleston were proposed. In early 1937, the Works Progress Administration started work to convert the mill building into the James F. Byrnes air terminal. Pan American World Airways hired the New York firm of Delano and Aldrich to plan for a...
  • Navy Yard Improvements (repurposed) - Charleston SC
    "The Charleston Naval Base provided defense for the United States from its formation in 1901 to its closure in 1996. Originally designated as the Navy Yard and later as the Naval Base it had a large impact upon the local community, the tri-county area and the entire State of South Carolina. Hundreds of thousands of people were employed, two hundred fifty-six vessels built, thousands of others supported and millions of dollars poured into the area’s economy." "The first dry dock, the largest on the east coast, was completed in 1907. In 1909, the powerhouse to supply electricity to the dry dock...
  • Planter's Hotel / Dock Street Theater Renovation - Charleston SC
    The historic Dock Street Theater, known as America's First Theater, in Charleston, South Carolina, was the subject of a massive Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and Works Project Administration (WPA) renovation project between 1935 and 1937. The structure was designed by the local architecture firm Simons & Lapham. CharlestonStage.com: After the Civil War, the Planter's Hotel fell into disrepair and was slated for demolition. But in 1935, after Milton Pearlstine made the property available to the City of Charleston and at the urging of Mayor Burnet Maybank and other notable citizens, the original building became a Depression Era WPA (Works Progress Administration) project. At that...
  • Robert Mills Manor - Charleston SC
    By the early twentieth century, the area that would become the Robert Mills Manor site consisted of a large assemblage of dilapidated late-19th and early-20th century residences and tenements surrounding the county's jail on the corner of Franklin and Magazine Streets. Conditions at the site had deteriorated to the point where contemporary accounts called it: "the worst disease breeding spot in the lower section of the city. Its existence was a constant police problem and fire hazard. Its crowded poorly lighted, evil smelling tenements depreciated the entire section of the city." In its 1937 report published in the City Year Book,...
  • Robert Mills Manor Public Housing - Charleston SC
    The Robert Mills Manor public housing project in Charleston, South Carolina was constructed with New Deal funds, likely under the auspices of the Public Works Administration (PWA). The Library of Congress: "The Robert Mills Manor Remains as Charleston's earliest and most intact example of a locally initiated public low-income housing project. During the 1930s, the Federal government began a subsidy programs for the development of low-income housing and for slum clearance. The City of Charleston quickly took advantage of these programs, developing several large low income projects, the first of which was the Robert Mills Manor. Its associations with prominent local architects...
  • The Citadel Military College of South Carolina Barracks - Charleston SC
    "The lack of facilities in the plant made it impossible to meet the demand for an increase in the student body until funds appropriated by the State legislature and a P.W.A. grant made possible the construction of several buildings, one of which was this barracks. It is substantially the same both architecturally and as to construction as the Murray barracks which were built in 1926. It is 4 stories in height and is built around an inner courtyard surrounded with balconies. It provides 52 rooms, 2 toilet rooms, 2 dressing rooms, and 2 shower rooms on each floor....
  • The Citadel Military College of South Carolina Chapel - Charleston SC
    "The lack of facilities in the plant made it impossible to meet the demand for an increase in the student body until funds appropriated by the State legislature and a P.W.A. grant made possible the construction of several buildings, one of which was this barracks. It is substantially the same both architecturally and as to construction as the Murray barracks which were built in 1926. It is 4 stories in height and is built around an inner courtyard surrounded with balconies. It provides 52 rooms, 2 toilet rooms, 2 dressing rooms, and 2 shower rooms on each floor....
  • Willard A. Silcox Physical Education and Health Center - Charleston SC
    The College of Charleston's Willard A. Silcox Physical Education and Health Center gymnasium was a WPA project.