Completion Year: 1937

Glendale Community College (formerly Junior College) relocated to its present campus in 1937. Several of the campus' original buildings—including the surviving John A. Davitt Administration Building—were constructed between 1936 and 1937 with the support of a bond election and funds matched equally by a Public Works Administration (PWA) grant. "The initial campus would consist of four buildings: a 24,000 square-foot Administration Building, a 12,000 square-foot Science Building and men's and women's locker rooms, together totaling 6,960 square feet. This plant would have 32 classrooms and laboratories. Space would be set aside for a student-funded student union, auditorium, liberal arts and classroom...

Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, CA was built with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1936-37. The modernistic new campus—featuring administration, industrial arts, cafeteria, physical education, and four classroom buildings—was designed by architects H. L. Gogerty and C. E. Noerenberg. It was built by the Gordon & Thiele Construction Company for $522,000. The campus was constructed on 21.5 acres of the former Anita Baldwin estate, which the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education purchased for $26,875. According to Southwest Builder and Contractor, "The streamlined appearance of Dorsey High was intended to architecturally and structurally express...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) helped fund construction of the magnificent Monterey County courthouse in downtown Salinas, California, which opened in 1937. New Deal funds supplemented a local bond issue to cover the cost of this large building, which covers a square block.   The cornerstone makes it clear that New Deal funding came from the PWA, not the Works Progress Administration (WPA), as claimed by the nearby historical marker. This is a common mistake, given the similarity of PWA and WPA. Robert Stanton was the architect and the design is Classical Moderne.  It was built with a large courtyard, which originally surrounded...

These six sunken plaster bas-reliefs depicting "The Transportation of the Mail" were installed in the Santa Barbara Main Post Office in 1937 by William Atkinson under the auspices of the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

This colorful mosaic by Stanton Macdonald-Wright is installed above the doors to the auditorium at Hooper Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles.  Entitled "Products of Nature and Inventions of Man," the mosaic was created under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP) in 1936-37. A 1936 article in California Arts & Architecture described the partially completed work: "This mosaic mural will be approximately eight feet wide by seven feet high. It symbolizes the products of nature and the works of man. The mosaic, a form of mural decoration developed by the Federal Art Project in southern California, is proving...

Venice High School in Los Angeles, CA was rebuilt with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) after the original neoclassical campus suffered extensive damage in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The architectural firm of Austin and Ashley designed the new Moderne-style buildings, which were erected between 1935 and 1937 at a total cost of $530,847. In 1935, the Clinton Construction Company built three buildings at the school as well as arcades connecting them. These survive as the Administration, East and West Buildings. That same year, Theodore A. Beyer built the school two new shop buildings, which do not appear to be...

Michael von Meyer created the enameled, magnolia wood carvings, called "Sea Creatures," in the balustrade of the south stairway of the Beach Chalet.  The carvings are 36" high and run all the way up to the second floor, about 25 feet in all.  It is a marvelous fantasy piece that includes an octopus, mermaid with child, merman (Neptune?), porpoise, fish with elephantine trunk, sailing ship and a deep-sea diver, among others. All the Beach Chalet artworks were done by unemployed artists hired by the Federal Art Project (FAP), a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). 

"Importance of Education in Sacramento" by Ralph Stackpole was painted in 1937 with support from the WPA Federal Art Project. The mural is 30' wide x 10' high, executed in tempera on wet plaster. "San Francisco painter and sculptor Ralph Stackpole was among the artists who created on the federal dime. He spent the summer of 1937 painting a mural on plaster in the lobby of the auditorium at Sacramento Junior College, on Freeport Boulevard, since renamed Sacramento City College. Stackpole's fresco depicts people engaged in various forms of work, such as designing an airplane and farming." (https://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/02/03/61368/senates-stimulus-bill-is-nothing.html#ixzz0rpxez4CQ). It was restored in the...

This tempera and oil on canvas mural "Incidents in California History" by Suzanne Scheuer was painted in 1936-37 with funding from the Treasury Relief Art Project. Located in the Berkeley Main Post Office. This mural depicts the earliest inhabitants of Berkeley. Scheuer was also one of the artists contributing to San Francisco's Coit Tower mural.

From 1933 to 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers developed Castle Crags State Park for public use.  CCC enrollees from a camp at Castella built "the park’s roads, trails, infrastructure and buildings in the 'park rustic' style of native wood and stone." (State Parks brochure).  Evidently, some of the CCC workers at Castle Crags were African American (see photo below). The state purchased the land in 1933 from a bankrupt private resort with a mineral springs, "Castle Rock Spring", which had fallen into disrepair.  The CCC workers built a trail down to the river, a new suspension bridge to replace an old, unsafe bridge for...