- State:
- WASHINGTON-DC
- Site Type:
- Civic Facilities, Community Centers
- New Deal Agencies:
- Alley Dwelling Authority (DC only), Housing Programs
- Started:
- 1940
- Completed:
- 1942
- Quality of Information:
- Minimal
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Unknown
Description
The Alley Dwelling Authority (ADA) funded the construction of an administration and community building for the Frederick Douglass Dwellings and surrounding community, ca. 1940-1942.
It is unknown to the Living New Deal if this building still exists.
The ADA was one of the earliest New Deal initiatives to provide better housing for low-income Americans. It replaced unsafe alley dwellings in Washington, DC with more modern and affordable houses and apartments. The ADA existed from 1934-1943 as a federally controlled special authority. It then slowly evolved into today’s DC Housing Authority, an independent agency of the DC Government.
The Frederick Douglass Dwellings Administration and Community Building was part of the New Deal’s overall effort to provide more community and recreation facilities for Americans. The WPA, for example, built 8,696 new recreation facilities between 1935 and 1943.
Source notes
Report of the National Capital Housing Authority, For the Ten-Year Period 1934-1944, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945, p. 122, available on Hathitrust (accessed August 25, 2020).
Federal Works Agency, Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947, p. 131, available on Hathitrust (accessed August 25, 2020).
Site originally submitted by Brent McKee on August 29, 2020.
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