Completion Year: 1940

This Works Progress Administration grammar school building in Mariposa, CA still functions as the local elementary school. The stonework surrounding the school is classic WPA style, and there are still WPA stamps in the cement, marked 1940. WPA Proj. No. 65-3-2147, $10,644, Oct. 2, 1935, "Complete grammar school, improve grounds. ERA Spa. Mariposa School district." WPA Proj. No. 65-3-3148, $270, March 13, 1936, "Cook to prepare and serve hot lunches for undernourished children from families on relief. At the Mariposa Grammar School." WPA Proj. No. 650-3-3851, $536, December 14, 1936, "School Improvement"

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped build the Sunset Playground in 1937-1940, working with the San Francisco Recreation Department.  The playground included a field house plus volleyball, basketball and tennis courts. "In 1937, the three-acre site at 29th Avenue and Lawton Street was bought for $50,676 and began as a playground. Built by the Recreation Department and the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration), Sunset Playground opened in 1940 with a small field house, volleyball, basketball and tennis courts." (ParkScan) We believe that the WPA relief workers developed the entire playground and not just the grading of the site, as indicated by Healy.  "Like...

A 1940 report identifies the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as having worked on lighting for the Golden Gate bridge, but provides no further details. The work was probably done in 1939-40.  Since no federal agencies were involved in the construction of the Golden Gate bridge itself, and the WPA and Public Works Administration (PWA) were involved in building all the approach roads to the bridge, it is most likely that this report is referring to lighting along the approaches not on the bridge itself.  Further confirmation is needed.      

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) developed the Monterey County Fairgrounds in 1939-40, building exhibit halls, barns, a racetrack and more. There is a WPA plaque on the grounds. (Note: in the second phase of the WPA's life, it was called the Works Projects Administration and was placed under the new Federal Works Administration) "Covering 22 acres, the Monterey county fairgrounds is the site of the annual county fair, as well as other events large and small which throughout the year. There are two arenas, livestock barns, and several exhibit halls. Probably only a handful of the millions of people who...

This former San Francisco post office, originally known as the Rincon Annex, was built in 1939-40 and served as the major package transfer center through the city's port – then the largest on the West Coast.  The building was paid for by the Treasury Department and designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood in the Streamline Moderne style. The detail work, inside and out, is exceptional.  The exterior scrim features repeated dolphin bas-reliefs and carved eagles across the facade.  The exterior windows and doors are beautiful  examples of the Art Deco love of cast aluminum.  The interior lobby is done in green...

The Berkeley Rose Garden lies on the west side of Euclid Avenue in the Berkeley Hills. It was constructed in the little valley of Codornices Creek, which emerges in a viewing pool at the bottom of the garden.  The rose garden was likely begun by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) in 1933-34, as they built the adjoining ball courts.  But the Rose Garden itself was a project of  the Works Progress Administration (WPA), completed in 1940.    "The Garden is designed like an amphitheater with wide stone terraces facing magnificent views of San Francisco Bay. A semicircular redwood pergola, which extends...

A New Deal Fresno brochure lists the swimming pool at Frank H. Ball park as being built by the PWA. The playground also received $42,000 for an NYA project to give youth training in building trades. The recreation building plaque shows that it, too, was an NYA project.

In 1940, Helen Lundeberg created a mosaic mural, "Quests for Mankind," for Canoga Park High School in Canoga Park, CA. The mural was funded by the Work Projects Administration Art Program (WPAAP). The mosaic depicts three stages in the progress of humankind: a family of early cave dwellers, a Hellenistic teaching scene, and Renaissance intellectuals with Pisa's Campanile in the background. A second, smaller panel depicts three founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence and three students looking at a globe. According to the school website, "the murals originally hung as five separate pieces on the outside north wall of the Assembly...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Bernal Recreation Center in San Francisco in 1939-1940.  It sits just behind and below the Bernal Heights Public Library. Work consisted of excavating and grading 1,492 cubic yards of rock and soil, building 75 feet of rubble wall (18 inches by 4 feet), and paving 16,000 square feet of playgr0und area. Notably, the report on WPA work in San Francisco made a point that the combination of the library and playground on the same property was ."... combining the benefits of physical and mental recreation.(Healy, p. 64). The WPA built rock walls are still visible above...

The beautiful Bernal Heights Library on Cortland Avenue in San Francisco was built in 1940 by the Works Projects Administration (WPA), after it had become part of the Federal Works Administration (FWA) in 1939. The library is built of reinforced concrete and finished in Mission Revival style with stucco exterior and tile roof.  The interior features lofty ceilings, large windows, and lovely hanging light fixtures. The floors, entrance and bathrooms are all tiled and the ceiling beams are hand-painted in abstract designs.   The shelving and furniture appear to be the original, made of solid oak, and the layout looks to be...