- City:
- Brooklyn, New York City, NY
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Parks and Recreation, Colleges and Universities, Gardens and Nurseries, Landscaping and Tree Planting
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Started:
- 1938
- Quality of Information:
- Very Good
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The buildings of Brooklyn College were financed by a massive federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken during the Great Depression. After the buildings were constructed, Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers worked on improving the campus, primarily through landscaping efforts, beginning in 1938.
The above image of WPA workers doing landscaping on the Brooklyn College campus comes from the Brooklyn Public Library. The caption reads: “Planting new shrubs on the grounds of Brooklyn College, between the hockey field and proposed tennis courts, has kept WPA gardeners busy these fall days.”
The WPA even maintained a plant nursery and a tulip garden on the campus, as the lower image shows.
Source notes
https://www.brooklynvisualheritage.org/landscaping-work-brooklyn-college https://www.brooklynvisualheritage.org/wpa-gardeners https://www.brooklynvisualheritage.org/brooklyn-college-nursery https://www.brooklynvisualheritage.org/campus-tulip-gardenSite originally submitted by Evan Kalish on November 11, 2014.
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