Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sites

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved Brighton Avenue in Neptune and Wall Townships, a $92,756 project. WPA Official Project Number: 265‐1‐22‐129

Text from the state historical marker reads: "The community's first school was housed in a multi-purpose building erected here in 1870. The Bristol School district was established in 1877. Youth from throughout the area attended Bristol schoolhouse built in 1886 and 1913. A new brick school containing five classrooms and an impressive auditorium and stage was completed here by the U.S. Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1940. 130 pupils attended the 9-grade, 6-teacher school in 1940-41. The school served the area until 1955. In 1957 its facilities and grounds were deeded to the Bristol Cemetery Association."

New York City's Parks Department writes: ", formerly named the 43rd St. Playground, is bounded by 42nd and 43rd Streets and 10th & New Utrecht Avenues. It was acquired through condemnation and assigned to Parks for playground purposes in 1938. The playground was designed and constructed the same year by the Works Progress Administration ..." The completion of the playground was officially announced on March 18, 1939.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of Broad Branch Road NW, from Twenty-seventh Street to Grant Road. This was a “roadside beautification” project, described as follows: “Inspection of this project from time to time showed that, due to heavy rains, the banks on the branch side of this road were washing and scoring. So that in addition to seeding and shrubbery planting, numerous concrete spillways were constructed on the branch side of the roadway.”  

Five Suffolk County highway beautification projects, directed by the WPA, put approximately 1,000 men to work for seven months beginning April 1936. The projects included "the Broad Hollow road from Huntington to Amityville."

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) paved 34 streets in Hartford, Connecticut, including the 0.6-mile stretch of Broad Street from New Britain Avenue to Maple Avenue, as part of a $2.5 million, two-year paving project begun in 1937. The federal government contributed $1 million.

Broadway Auditorium in Buffalo, New York was improved substantially ca. 1936 by federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor. 150 men were put to work as part of this effort. The building now serves as a municipal Streets Department warehouse.

The Works Progress Administration completed road improvements on Broadway Avenue. The work included “Stone-basing and surfacing Broadway Avenue.” The exact location of this project is unknown to the Living New Deal. The name of Broadway Avenue has changed.

The Works Progress Administration built storm sewers on Broadway Avenue in Clarksburg. The work consisted of “Construction of 24- and 18-Inch sewers."

The federal Work Projects Administration worked to improve Broadway in Long Beach, New York during the 1930s. One project called for the "surfacing constructing sidewalks, curbs, and leaching basins."

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved Broadway in Saranac Lake, New York, including replacing brick paving with concrete and reconstructing its sidewalks.

The federal Works Progress Administration paved Broadway in Camden, New Jersey between Federal Street and the city line at Newton Creek. The project took 242 man-hours of work and required 4,000 tons of material.

Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) laborers repaved Broadway in Chelsea, Mass.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to reconstruct a broken sewer line along and around Broadway in Passaic, New Jersey ca. 1936. The project would provide 150 men work for six months. Most of the cost of the work was borne by the federal government.

The Work Projects Administration (WPA) constructed sidewalks in Lynn, Mass., including along Broadway.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to improve many roads in San Francisco, including the stretch of Broadway St. (then simply Broadway) between Mason St. and Davis St.

This state office building was constructed in the Art Moderne style of Carthage marble in order to complement the state capitol which is north of the Broadway building. It was partly constructed with WPA funds.

The bridge carrying Broadway Street over Coop Creek east of Mansfield, Arkansas, was constructed by the Work Projects Administration (W.P.A.) in 1940.

In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built an extension of the sanitary sewer up Broadway Terrace from Harbord Drive to Sheridan Road (just below the brow of the hills near Lake Temescal).  (Oakland Tribune 1937) The current state of the sewer line is unknown. Broadway Terrace is a major artery with water, gas, telephone and internet lines, and the concrete roadbed has been repeatedly cut through and repaired.   Judging from the placement of manhole covers, there appears to be two sewer lines running parallel along this stretch of road and another, probably older, line in the old Broadway Terrace...

The Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) constructed the former high school building and attendant perimeter wall in 1938-9. A W.P.A. plaque remains on site. It is located in front of the new high school, on the remains of the step entrance to the old building.

The federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) put many men to work starting in 1935 with street repair and maintenance projects that improved roads throughout the Bronx. The work pictured here shows WPA laborers on the Bronx Boulevard construction project.  

"Until 1937, the north portion of Bronx Park was owned by the NY Botanical Garden and the NY Zoological Society and had no public facilities such as paths, lighting, playgrounds, or athletic fields. As part of the Bronx River Parkway extension project, the Parks Department gained jurisdiction and, with Works Progress Administration labor, began to convert the entire area into a park. This was one big New Deal project with many parts, including: Reiss Field on the east side (1939); Waring Playground on the east side (1939); Rosewood Playground on the east side (1940); 227th Street Playground on the east side (1941); French Charley's Playground...

New York City's Parks Department writes: "Ranaqua, the Bronx headquarters of the Department of Parks & Recreation of the City of New York, is located in the southeastern part of Bronx Park, east of the northbound lanes of the Bronx River Parkway. The name is the Reckgawank Algonquin (Delaware) word for "End Place," the peninsula originally sold to Jonas Bronck in 1639. The three-story brick building, with its adjacent garages, yards and shops, was built by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) and opened by Robert Moses in 1937."

Researcher Frank da Cruz has done some serious groundwork to uncover the history of Reiss Field on the east side of Bronx Park, opposite Reiss Place, just north of Pelham Parkway. This ball field stands precisely where the Parks Department press release of October 31, 1939, announces a playground "designed by the Department of Parks and built for the Park Department by the Work Projects Administration": a "1.36 acre playground in Bronx Park adjacent to Bronx Park East opposite Reiss Place, contains one shuffleboard, four horseshoe pitching, five paddle tennis, two volleyball and two basketball courts, completely encircled by a...

Researcher Frank da Cruz has gathered research from a variety of sources here to conclude that the New Deal had some role in the development of the Trojan Courts area of the east side of Bronx Park: This area includes the Trojan baseball fields (named after the Bronx Trojans, a 1930s amateur baseball team), the Trojan Courts (game courts), Brady Playground, and Ben Abrams (formerly Lydig) Playground. Records of specific projects in this area are scant; we have only the May 4, 1936, press release from which it is clear that a baseball field was built on the site in 1936, and...

"Waring Playground in Bronx Park, across Bronx Park East from the block between Waring Avenue and Thwaite Place, June 17, 2015. It opened on September 28, 1939, as part of the larger project of developing the land turned over by the New York Botanical Garden to the Parks Department. Although the Parks Department's September 27, 1939 press release does not explicitly credit the WPA or any other New Deal agency with building or funding this facility, it states that it "is a unit in a chain of children's recreation areas already built or now under construction along the easterly boundaries...

The WPA dredged the Bronx River between East 177th St. and East 180th St. during the 1930s. A 1935 allotment provided $7,426 for the project. WPA Official Project No. 65-97-446(?).

During the last decade of the 1800s, John Grignola carved this granite statue of a Civil War Union soldier for Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. After years of neglect, WPA workers located the statue in the Bronx River, refurbished it, and moved it to another Bronx River location. According to New York City's Department of Parks & Recreation, the statue never made it into the Woodlawn Cemetery, either because it was damaged or because it was rejected by the cemetery. John B. Lazzari, owner of "a local tombstone quarry and monuments yard,"  purchased the statue and displayed "..it on his property on the west...

From 1934 to 1935 the Bronx Terminal Market expansion project took place with New Deal support. The Market was one of eight indoor markets that New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia built or expanded with federal support. It was part of the Mayor's campaign to clear unregulated pushcart vendors out of the streets and into sheltered, regulated markets. The Market Expansion project improved and provided new facilities for receiving and distributing produce throughout upper Manhattan and the Bronx. The Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society tells us that the new markets created by LaGuardia "...used federal WPA funds to create...indoor markets that were required...

From 1938 to 1939 federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers constructed a freight shed at the north end of the Bronx Terminal Market. Much of the funding for the project came from a $250,000 allocation from the New Deal Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). A city appropriation of $130,000 paid for the rest. Researcher Frank da Cruz has collected evidence about the freight shed's construction which make clear that, at the time, the project received widespread praise in the local press for reducing the price of food in the surrounding area, by allowing for more direct distribution of wholesale produce. Mayor LaGuardia initiated the formation...

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.  Robert Moses was the master planner of New York from the 1920s to the 1920s, and one of Moses' seats of power was the Triborough Bridge Authority, which built this and other bridges. Moses used New Deal funds liberally to build the projects he had in mind for the city. But he did not...

"Hackettstown is receiving full value of Federal work relief money and is accomplishing a much needed improvement. The clearing and widening of the brook that flows back of Park Avenue, then through the dump meadows on Franklin Street before it empties into the Musconetcong, is a worthwhile project from a sanitary point."

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed Richmond’s Brook Field Park Swimming Pool in 1938. The pool was a segregated one, operating exclusively for the African American people of the city, as was normal practice in the Jim Crow era.   Made out of concrete, the pool’s physical dimensions were listed as 185 x 60 feet by 2 and a half to 11 feet deep. Like other WPA pool projects, the Brook Field Park Swimming Pool included the most modern equipment of the day, including a circulation pump and filter system as well as water treatment tools and a series of floodlights....

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) completed improvements in Brookdale Park NJ (Essex County) in 1937. Initial construction of the park began in 1928 following an Olmstead Brothers’ design. “The basic work was in place by 1930,” suggests the Essex County Parks Department. But hen the Depression hit, the work that was originally estimated to take only a few years was extended to many years. Construction became dependent upon labor available from the WPA and ERA agencies, who completed the major work by 1937. The result is one of the County's most beautiful parks.” The WPA provided most of the funds and labor...

The WPA contributed funds for a "handsome new building ... for the purpose of sheltering the valuable equipment of the highway department of Brookhaven Town. ... is believed that the new structure will result in a considerable saving to the taxpayers." The building was to be set on a three-acre tract in Coram. It is still in use at the coordinates specified.

The old Brookhaven Town Hall in Patchogue is located at the northeast corner of South Ocean Ave. & Baker St. According to Sayville's Suffolk County News in 1939, "The WPA has approved the proposed construction of an extension to the Brookhaven Town Hall at a cost of $86,369, of which the government's share will be $39,338." The building was renovated by Northwell Health and now functions as a Medical Building.

In 1936-37, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of Brookland Avenue NE between Michigan Avenue to Bates Road. WPA improved this road with recycled material and the “laying of a thin blanket of bituminous material.” Also, “this project required a fill of about 10 feet at the Michigan Avenue end, due to the necessity for raising the grade at this location in connection with the construction of the Michigan Avenue viaduct.”

Now an industrial park, the Brooklyn Army Terminal at 140 58th Street, which was previously known as the Port of Embarkation, was improved through numerous projects conducted by the federal Work Projects Administration during the 1930s and early 1940s.

"In the rotunda of the are bronze busts of Linnaeus, Darwin, Mendel, Asa Gray, Robert Brown, and John Torrey--the work of WPA sculptors."

The New Deal supported various improvements to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden during the Great Depression, among which was the Herb Garden: "Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor was used to build the 1938 Herb Garden, a Caparn design taken from a 1577 Elizabethan knot garden." The herb garden is no longer extant. Other New Deal-funded efforts, such as bronze busts of noted naturalists that reside in the Laboratory Building rotunda, also grace the Botanic Garden.