Completion Year: 1937

Brooklyn College was created in the 1930s with the assistance of the New Deal.  The five original buildings, including a library and gymnasium, were built with PWA funding and the grounds were landscaped by WPA workers. The college's web page tells the story as follows: “Founded in 1930, Brooklyn College was New York City’s first public coeducational liberal arts college. The school was envisioned as a stepping stone for the sons and daughters of immigrants and working-class people toward a better life through a superb — and at the time, free — college education… Despite being in the throes of the Great Depression,...

The Williamsburg Houses were opened in 1937, one of three huge public housing projects in New York City funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA), along with First Houses and Harlem River Houses in Manhattan.  New York City was the unchallenged leader in the creation of public housing in the United States, beginning in the 1920s, and the New Deal allowed the city to continue to built high-quality public housing that has stood the test of time. The official PWA history, published in 1939, described the project in detail: "Williamsburg Houses, the 'city-within-a-city' slum-clearance project, erected in the heart of the historic Williamsburg...

The Madison Square Station post office in New York, New York "was built in 1935, and designed by consulting architects Lorimer Rich for the Office of the Supervising Architect." (Wikipedia) It was one of many post office constructed in Manhattan during the New Deal era. Professor Dolkart of Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation tells us that "Madison Square Station is a Modern Classical structure with an important interior layout, modeled after that of a bank (it was published in the architectural press at the time)." (Dolkart) Wikipedia states that "...the building is a two-to-three story building clad on its main...

The Triborough bridge linking up Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan over East River, is still known to New Yorkers by that name, even though it was officially renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in 2008. The Triborough Bridge is one of three major bridges, along with the Henry Hudson and the Bronx-Whitestone, built during the New Deal era to link the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, and tie together the expanding highway system in and out of New York City.  Construction on the Triborough bridge began in 1929, but the Depression soon slowed progress on the project. In 1933, Robert Moses, head...

Holmes Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska was constructed as a federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project. Construction occurred in 1937. PWA Docket No. Neb. 1282. Short and Stanley-Brown: "The Holmes School occupies a 10-acre plot, thus providing ample space for playgrounds. It accommodates 160 pupils. The building is one story and a basement in height, and is T-shaped in plan. It contains three classrooms, a combination library and museum, a playroom, a storage room for bicycles, and a community room which has a stage and a kitchen. The construction is semifireproof. Exterior walls are brick trimmed with wood, the floor is reinforced...

"The new school occupies the corner of a 7-acre lot, permitting the development of athletic and play fields. It is a combination grade and junior high school and provides an auditorium and gymnasium, as well as the necessary classrooms and special rooms. It is of semifireproof construction and was completed in April 1937 at a construction cost of $198,628 and a project cost of $219,275." (Short and Brown) Wikipedia; "The original school building was constructed in 1936. Over the years, several additions have been made to the school. The most recent construction added 30,000 square feet of space, primarily in the middle...

"The Supreme Court Building was built to relieve the congestion that existed in the State capitol where the supreme court had always been housed. The new building is occupied by the supreme court with its accessory offices, the attorney general, the State treasurer, and the State law library. The necessary vaults and storage spaces are provided for each department. It is a semifireproof structure provided with a sprinkler system. The floors are concrete on steel joists, sash are steel, and exterior walls are brick covered with cream-colored stucco. Copings and window sills are brick....

"This city hall occupies the site of a former building which was destroyed by fire on April 9, 1933. It is approximately 120 by 140 feet over-all in plan and is two stories and a basement in height. As it is on sloping ground, the basement windows are above grade on the rear. The basement provides space for the public-welfare department and for a small courtroom. On the first floor are most of the city offices and space for record storage. The council chamber, the mayor's offices, and the department of public works are on the second floor. The building is fireproof,...

"The building is T-shaped in plan and three stories in height, and its over-all dimensions are 180 by 131 feet. It is fireproof throughout, the exterior walls being of water-struck brick and limestone. The project was completed in September 1937 at a cost of approximately $450,000."

The Public Works Administration (PWA) helped fund the construction of the Oliver Morton School in Hammond IN, which was completed in 1937.  An addition was added in 1952 and when a new high school was built in 1967, this building became Morton Junior High (Middle School).  It was demolished in 1991. Short and Brown's 1939 survey of PWA buildings says this about Morton High:  "The new structure is 3 stories in height and is built around a court which is landscaped as a formal garden. On the ground floor are 12 classrooms, a band room, shop, kindergarten, 2 museums, girls' and...