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  • John Jay Park Improvements - New York NY
    The New York Times reported in Sept. 1941 that the WPA worked on the "reconstruction of John Jay Park along the East River Drive, between Seventy-sixth and Seventy-eighth Streets." Specific improvements included the installation of a new diving pool with concrete bleachers; the remodeling of an "old bath building" to "include a recreation room, gymnasium and auditorium"; and a new "completely equipped playground." A May 1942 Department of Parks press release further reported that the WPA had relocated the concession building, paved areas of the park, installed benches and planted trees.
  • Manhattan Bridge and Flatbush Avenue Improvements - Brooklyn NY
    Among the traffic improvement projects in Brooklyn undertaken by the WPA and described by the New York Times in 1941 was that which impacted a major traffic artery connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan: the Manhattan Bridge and Flatbush Avenue Extension. The work would " Brooklyn-bound automobiles during the evening rush hours and for a greater diffusion of traffic ..." One notable "hazardous reverse curve and steep grade" was eliminated entirely. The WPA also added additional traffic lanes, removing "heavy granite walls and balustrades" so to ease a major traffic bottleneck. Along the Flatbush Avenue Extension three safety islands were added between Lafayette...
  • Upland Elementary School Exterior Murals - Upland CA
    Artist Paul Julian created a series of four large petrachrome murals on the exterior of Upland Elementary School's auditorium. The murals were funded by the WPA's Federal Art Project and completed in 1942. The set of four murals depicts scenes from Upland's history: native era, mission era, Anglo settlement and citrus era.  The paintings are in a stylized social realism typical of the time, featuring muscular men at work in all four panels.  It is notable that the Indigenous people are portrayed in the same muscular manner as Spaniards and Anglos – though the cooperative labor of padres and natives seems a...
  • Deer Park Pool - Sparks NV
    The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Deer Park Pool in Sparks, Nevada.  Construction began in 1941 and the pool opened in 1942.  The pool was entirely renovated in 2007, including rebuilding the pool structure itself. Stonework around the pool is in typical WPA fashion.    
  • Cohen Federal Building: Guston Fresco - Washington DC
    The Wilbur J. Cohen building, originally built for the Social Security Administration in 1938-1940, is home to a magnificent collection of social security themed artworks funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. One of the artworks is a large fresco stage curtain in the auditorium by Philip Guston, "Reconstruction and Well-Being of the Family" (1942). The Social Security Administration never occupied the building, which was turned over to the War Department in 1941.  After the war, the Federal Security Agency (FSA), under which the Social Security Board had been placed in 1939, moved into the building. In 1953, the Department of Health,...
  • Cohen Federal Building: Shahn Frescoes - Washington DC
    The Wilbur J. Cohen building, originally built for the Social Security Administration in 1938-1940, is home to a magnificent collection of social security themed artworks funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.  The most spectacular of the artworks is a massive, multi-paneled, fresco mural by Lithuanian-born artist Ben Shahn, entitled "The Meaning of Social Security." Shahn's mural cycle covers both sides of the central corridor of the  building. On the east wall are three panels depicting the ills Social Security was meant to alleviate:  "Child Labor, Unemployment, and Old Age."  On the west well are scenes of a society cured of...
  • Inks Lake State Park - Burnet TX
    "With its dependable water source, abundant fish and game, and natural beauty, the region of Central Texas around the Colorado River and present Inks Lake has been an inviting location for centuries, attracting Native American and German and Anglo settlers. In 1937 while running as a candidate for the surrounding Congressional district, Lyndon Baines Johnson promised voters that he would create a “Tennessee Valley Authority” type of transformation for the Colorado River, including dams for flood control and electricity, bridges and highways, and recreational facilities along the river. Johnson’s victory soon brought into being the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA)...
  • Modoc National Forest Improvements - Hackamore CA
    "President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided a work force, which pushed the Modoc Forest development work years ahead. A special camp was built at Hackamore in 1933 and maintained there almost until the abandonment of the Corps in 1942. Spike camps from this main camp were established when necessary but the gentle nature of the Modoc terrain allowed workers from the main camp to reach out much further than in the average forest area... ...By the end of 1933 there were some thirty sizeable CWA crews working out from their homes on Modoc Forest projects. A large number...
  • Juniper Valley Park - Middle Village NY
    This large park in the Middle Village neighborhood of Queens provides a wealth of leisure and recreational attractions to local residents. Before it became a park, "it was used variously as a farm, a cemetery, a source for peat moss, the property of a racketeer, and a garbage dump...In the early 1930s the City of New York acquired the bog to settle a $225,000 claim in back taxes against the estate of the infamous Arnold Rothstein (1882-1928), who had been accused of fixing the 1919 World Series" (nycgovparks). The WPA greatly transformed the park, first in 1936 and again in...
  • Sardis Lake and Dam - Sardis MS
    "...the vast New Deal flood-control project (1938-42) that dammed the Tallahatchie River and created Sardis Lake, an artificial reservoir that covered hundreds of square miles in western Lafayette and eastern Panola counties. The dam itself was a giant, mile-long mound of earth, one of the world's largest, with sculpturally modernist steel and concrete elements framing the spillway and the water level control towers" (Hines, 1996, p. 112). Later, the Sardis State Park was added. The site was renamed the John W. Kyle State Park and Dam, though the name Sardis Lake is still used as well.
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