High School Athletic Field Improvements – Madison NJ

Description

A 1936 paper reported: “The WPA installed toilets in the high school garage, which is used as a comfort station for tennis players during the summer. At the present time WPA workers are working on the $25,000 plan to renovate the high school athletic field and the $6,000 tennis courts have been completed….” (Nov. 12, 1936)

A 1937 update “MADISON – The $25,000 WPA project of renovating the Madison High School athletic field has been temporarily stopped for lack of funds… A secondary factor in stopping the work is the fact that the available lists of WPA workers eligible for the project is practically depleted. Most of the fifty-odd men who found employment at various times on the project have been employed in private enterprise since the project was begun a year ago… In the time the WPA squads toiled on the field they succeeded in moving the janitor’s cottage from the middle of the field to an inconspicuous spot behind the high school. The field has been graded to a uniform level and a grove of trees has been removed to enlarge the area. The most difficult part of the project, that of removing a “hill” in the middle of the field to a corner that needed filling, has been completed. In a few places the level of the ground had to be graded as many as seven feet before a uniform plane was attained… There is little chance that the field will be available for use before the Spring of 1938….” (Jan. 15, 1937, p.13)