Public Works Funding Sites

The Bureau of Public Roads provided funds to construct an overpass carrying 12th Street over the railroad in Folsom, N.J. The project was undertaken as part of a larger grade crossing elimination initiative during that era. Living New Deal believes this structure has since been replaced. New Jersey Board of Public Utility Commissioners: "A "Works Program-State Highway Department" project on which the Board initiated proceedings and on March 26, 1936, after a re-hearing of the case, issued an order to eliminate the grade crossing. Contract for construction was let by the State Highway Department on April 7, 1937 ... Funds from the Bureau of Public Roads were allotted...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of the 138th Infantry Regiment Armory in St. Louis MO. Completed in 1937, the armory building has been converted to office space. Excerpt from Missouri Armories: The Guard's Home in Architecture and History: "On May 15, 1934, the City of St. Louis approved a bond issue to fund improvements; $15 million of the bond issue, plus a 30 percent grant from the PWA, made construction of the $1,347,000 armory possible... This armory is a large two-story building with a monitor-type roof over a large parade hall." The Missouri National Guard declared the building...

In September 1935, an enormous highway and grade crossing elimination program was approved by the state Public Works Administration (PWA) officials and was forwarded to Washington for final approval. The large number of projects would amount to a financial outlay of $3,614,500.00 in PWA funds, and an estimated $80,000.00 of the total would be spent on a grade separation at the intersection of Highway 281 and the Union Pacific tracks in Hastings. Although specifics had not yet been shared with the public, it was thought that the project would include an overpass near 16th Street and Kansas Avenue. The highway...

Federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds enabled the construction of the old terminal at what was then known as Houston Municipal Airport. The Art Deco building at William P. Hobby Airport now serves as the 1940 Air Terminal Museum.

Harrisburg's 19th Street Armory was constructed in 1937-8 as a New Deal project. The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a $28,752 grant for the project, whose total cost was $89,050. PWA Docket No. PA 1807.

The Alley Dwelling Authority (ADA) and the Federal Works Agency (FWA) funded the construction of the 21st Street Houses in Washington, DC in 1943. This development of 36 living units was built for African American national defense workers (Washington, DC was highly segregated at the time). It is unknown to the Living New Deal if any of the structures still exist, but it is not likely since these homes were classified as “demountable,” i.e., intended to be taken down and salvaged sometime after the war. The ADA was one of the earliest New Deal initiatives to provide better housing for low-income Americans. It...

The Alley Dwelling Authority (ADA) and the Federal Works Agency (FWA) funded the construction of the 25th Street Houses in Washington, DC in 1944. This development of 40 living units was built for white national defense workers (Washington, DC was highly segregated at the time). It is unknown to the Living New Deal if any of the structures still exist, but it is not likely since these homes were classified as “demountable,” i.e., intended to be taken down and salvaged sometime after the war. The ADA was one of the earliest New Deal initiatives to provide better housing for low-income Americans. It replaced...

The Alley Dwelling Authority (ADA) and the Federal Works Agency (FWA) funded the construction of the 35th Street Houses in Washington, DC in 1943. This development of 75 living units was built for white national defense workers (Washington, DC was highly segregated at the time). It is unknown to the Living New Deal if any of the structures still exist, but it is not likely since these homes were classified as “demountable,” i.e., intended to be taken down and salvaged sometime after the war. The ADA was one of the earliest New Deal initiatives to provide better housing for low-income Americans. It replaced...

Constructed with Public Works Administration (PWA) funds in 1936, the 5th Avenue Bridge spanned Pigeon Creek, south of Diamond Ave, though it is no longer extant. It was a modified parker truss bridge, polygonal top chords, lacks cross diagonals in the center two bays, instead the laterals in these two bays form a diamond, cement deck with floor beams and stringers and bottom lateral bracing, sidewalk decks cantilevered out on both sides.

In 1934 the Federal Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funds to build a million-gallon water storage tank in Newport News, Virginia to replace the old water tank. The caption for the photo above reads "A million-gallon water-storage tank erected at Newport News, Virginia, to replace an old tank which had been condemned." The name listed for the project on the PWA docket records is "Newport News 60th Street Elevated Tank." Researcher Frank da Cruz has found that this water tank as well as others constructed by the PWA in the area at the same time, were "...financed by 25% to 45%...

Seventy-Fifth Street Elementary, which opened in 1922, was rebuilt with a grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA). The work was done sometime in 1934-35. In January 1934, the PWA allocated $9,380,000 to the Los Angeles Unified School District for the rehabilitation of schools damaged in the severe 1933 Long Beach earthquake.  One hundred and thirty schools would benefit from the system-wide loan and grant, with 2,500 men to be employed in rehabilitation work over 21 months. Seventy-Fifth Street Elementary was one of three schools in the city to receive an outright grant.  It was awarded $24,000, while Huntington Park Elementary School received $7,000...

The Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) provided fundings for the elimination of a grade crossing involving 79th Street along the west side of Manhattan, with the tracks then serving the New York Central railway. The funding was allocated as part of a much larger grade crossing elimination project involving multiple branches of the Staten Island Railway. Construction at 79th Street was such that the new grade separation structures would integrate with Riverside Drive and the then-new West Side highway.

"This P.W.A. allotment made it possible for the Quartermaster Corps of the Army to erect 12 field officers' quarters of the type illustrated on this page. Each building provides heater, fuel, and storerooms, and a laundry in the basement; a living room, sun porch, dining room, kitchen, pantry, garage, and maid's room on the first floor; and three bedrooms, two baths, and a dressing room on the second floor. They are frame buildings with exterior walls of native quarry stone. They were completed in February 1936 and the P.W.A. allotment, which involved other buildings at the post, was $688,707."

Abraham Lincoln High School, which opened in 1878, was rebuilt with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) between 1934 and 1935. Architect Albert C. Martin designed the Moderne-style buildings, which feature murals and sculptures likely completed under the auspices of the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP). In January 1934, the PWA allocated $9,380,000 to the Los Angeles Unified School District for the rehabilitation of schools damaged in the severe 1933 Long Beach earthquake.  One hundred and thirty schools would benefit from the system-wide loan and grant, with 2,500 men to be employed in rehabilitation work over 21 months. Upon receiving news of...

Academic unit; shop unit, 2 gyms, auditorium to be added later. 1 new building. The October 3, 1938 edition of the Daily Pacific Builder reported that $750,000 in PWA funds had been allotted for the first unit of the construction of the Abraham Lincoln High School. From the school's current website: "The result of a 1938 bond measure approved by San Francisco voters to address the increasing population in the Western San Francisco area, Abraham Lincoln High School was incorporated into a modern three-story building that was completed at a cost of over $750,000 in 1940 with just 50 classrooms, a cafeteria, a...

The historic former Acadia School in Madawaska, Maine was constructed with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building "began as a high school and after several years it was an elementary school. At one time it housed 250 eighth-graders." It presently serves as a suite of medical facilities. The PWA provided a loan of $67,000 and a grant of $26,558 for the school's construction; its total cost was $97,295. Construction occurred between Aug. 1934 and Apr. 1935. PWA Docket No. ME 4758.

The Public Works Administration (PWA) financed the construction of the Hawthorne Elementary School in the Fruitvale area of Oakland, California, in 1940.  The PWA had been incorporated into the Federal Works Agency (FWA) circa 1940 (the plaque does not give a date). The single-story building's design is (PWA) Moderne with bas-relief columns between the windows on the south wing and a decorative scrim above. The north wing is plain. The main entrance has a simple grooved edging.   Because the school lies within the main Latino/x district of Oakland, it has been painted in bright colors, as the community prefers. The effect...

Ackerman High School is a 2-story Art Moderne building dating to 1941. Currently closed, the school was PWA Project Miss. 1156.

"Built in 1938-39, the Ada County Courthouse was constructed as part of the Depression-era Public Works Administration (PWA). Building the courthouse provided jobs not only for construction workers and craftsmen, but also for the artists that embellished it. The Art Deco style of the building is partly the result of using many workers who were not necessarily skilled in construction. The collaborative efforts of architectural firms Tourtellotte & Hummel and Wayland & Fennell resulted in a simple design characterized by geometric shapes, which were considered easier to build. The modern style and solid construction were also intended to communicate confidence...

The Adams Avenue Overpass is a 285 foot long steel stringer bridge that takes West Adams Avenue over multiple tracks of the former Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway (now BNSF Railway) in Temple, Texas. The bridge, which replaced an existing timber trestle structure, consists of six spans of steel I-beams resting on concrete abutments and bents. The United States Bureau of Public Roads provided funding for the bridge through a federal aid grade crossing program. The Texas Highway Department designed the bridge which was built by the Austin Bridge Company between July 1938 and April 1939 at a cost...

Adams Elementary School was built in 1936 with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). The design was by local architect K.C. Schaub. It is a long, single-story, brick Moderne structure with subtle bas-relief columns and minimal decoration. The Adams School is still in use today.

Adams Hall was constructed as the school of business for the University of Oklahoma in 1935 by the PWA. Joseph Smay was on the architecture faculty and designed this and Richards Hall in 1935.  Included in the project is a series of murals reflecting different aspects of Oklahoma business life by Craig Sheppard, a fine arts student at the time.  The sculptures of industry and commerce were executed by Jules Struppeck who did a Post Office project in Many, LA.

Adams St. in Boston, Mass. underwent reconstruction as part of a Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) project.

"The Rex Activity Center is one of twelve buildings designated to Alamosa's Historic Registry... Designed by architect William Bowman and constructed in 1938-39 as a Public Works Administration project, Rex Gym is one of the oldest buildings on campus and an excellent example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. The Marvel House (president's residence; built 1931-32) and Richardson Hall (built 1924) were also designed by Bowman."

P.W.A. Federal Project No. 487

Affton High School was built by the PWA in 1935-37. The school has since been sold and repurposed into an extensive senior living center (The Village at Mackenzie Place). The old high school is at the front of the complex on Mackenzie.

Afton High School was constructed in late 1934 as a New Deal project. The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided an $18,000 loan and $7,507 grant for the project, whose total cost was $26,287. PWA Docket No. OK 1948. OKHistory: This "T" shaped (192' x 98') structure is constructed of brick which has been painted yellow. The school consists of two units: a classroom unit which has a flat roof with parapets and a gym unit, which forms the stem of the "T" and has an arched roof with stepped parapets. The double door front entry is arched with fanlight, framed by pointed...

  Vocational night school. Eighteen classrooms. Near high school. 'Bids will be opened for constructing Agassiz elementary unit of twelve classrooms to be located at Bartlett and Twenty-second Streets. Masten and Hurd are the architects. The estimated cost is $179,000.'--The Architect and Engineer, Nov. 1935 (p. 60)

Pennsylvania State University's Ag Engineering building was one of a dozen buildings constructed on the campus during the Great Depression as part of a massive construction project enabled by the federal Public Works Administration (PWA). The building is still in use today.

From The Fur Farms of Alaska: Two Centuries of History and a Forgotten Stampede: "In 1937, the legislature responded by appropriating $20,000 to establish an experimental fur station near Petersburg on land to be selected by a committee of three— Governor John Troy, B. Frank Heintzelman from the Forest Service (which contributed thirty-five acres of land), and Frank Dufresne of the Biological Survey (which granted $4,000 for research equipment)... The site chosen by the committee was cleared of trees by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Public Works Administration awarded a building grant and oversaw the building contractor. The new farm...

The Texas Highway Department and the Federal Works Agency Public Roads Administration built an overpass in 1941 to separate the grade of Airline Drive and the Houston Belt and Terminal Railway tracks. The overpass is currently open to traffic.

The Public Works Administration (PWA) paid for a grade-separation underpass on the Bayshore Highway under the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks in South San Francisco.  The project cost $200,000. The underpass, completed in 1936, doubled the width of an earlier structure built in 1927 and increased its capacity from 4 to 8 lanes (lanes were narrower at the time). This was much desired by the local Chamber of Commerce and, no doubt, by travelers on the Bayshore Highway, the main route south from San Francisco to San Jose. It also  improved access to the San Francisco Airport, which was benefitting from New Deal...

The federal Public Works Administration helped to provide funding for the construction of an airport hangar during the 1930s (PWA Federal Project No. 223). The airport, under the name Bourne Field, served as a military airfield and, during the early 1940s, the hangar was extended an addition 100 feet. (Navy.mil) The hangar served as the passenger terminal for the Harry S Truman Airport; the building was fully replaced when a new terminal was completed in 1990. The old hangar was most likely demolished between 1980 and the early 1990s. The airport has since been renamed the Cyrus E. King Airport.

Alameda County courthouse is a striking example of Moderne Architecture. It consists of a large base filling a city block, a setback tower, two further stories of jail set farther back and a hipped roof with observation cupola at the top. The base and tower are white concrete with striking vertical window columns.  The south facade features a large bas-relief eagle over the door (and has been altered for wheelchair access).  The main entrance, no longer used, faces Lake Merritt to the east, with a grand lobby and staircase flanked by large marble mosaics. The interior, housing several floors of...

This sub-station of the Municipal Power and Light System of the City of Alameda was constructed with the aid of the Public Works Administration (PWA). The exact date is unknown to us. The old power plant has been demolished and replaced by a housing complex (c. 1970s).  Two auxiliary buildings remain, which appear to be empty and unused.  One can be seen to the left of the former power plant in the photos from the 1930s.

The 1,300+ mile Alaska Highway was constructed in 1942 and opened in 1943.  It was built to provide an alternate supply line to Alaska during World War II, an idea the President Roosevelt had proposed to the Canadian government in 1936.  It runs through Canadian Territory but the cost was borne by the United States.   The Alaska Highway was a joint effort of the U.S. Army (Corps of Engineers) and the Public Roads Administration (PRA)—a sub-agency of the New Deal's Federal Works Agency that replaced the earlier Bureau of Public Roads.  The construction was carried out by a host of PRA-contracted...

Albany did not have a public high school until 1936; students traveled to Berkeley, Richmond or Oakland. The WPA and PWA contributed to the building of Albany High between, roughly, 1936-1941. According to the Albany Times from that period, five building units were constructed, including administrative offices, classrooms, laboratories, a cafeteria, nurse's offices, print shop, library, theater, gym, and music room. Regarding cost, also according to the Albany Times, the WPA contributed $20,000 of the $60,000 it cost to build the first unit, and at least $26,602 to building the third unit. A PWA grant of $28,350 went to the fourth...

Albany Street Bridge Over Boston & Albany Railroad. "The city requested a grant from the Government for bridge alterations as follows: Altering and strengthening Boylston Street Bridge; rebuilding Berkeley Street Bridge and rebuilding Albany Street Bridge. The total cost of this work is approximately $265,000 ..." P.W.A. Docket No. Mass. 1584-F.

The bridge carrying Albee Avenue over the newly sunken Staten Island Railway was built in 1940, as one link in a large grade crossing removal project sponsored by the Public Works Administration (PWA).

The Public Works Administration funded improvement work at the Alcatraz Prison on Alcatraz Island. The cost of the project was $1,100,000. The funds for the modernization were earmarked through a PWA program in 1938. The modernization plans were temporarily suspended after the Attorney General suggested the prison be moved away from San Francisco’s “doorstep.” The work restarted in 1940, when Attorney General Jackson took office, inspected the site, and approved the modernization project. James V. Bennett, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, declared in 1940 for the Fresno Bee that he expected the construction to finish by July of 1940. He also...