Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park Improvements - Berkeley CA

City:: Berkeley, CA
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Landscaping and Tree Planting
New Deal Agencies:: Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Designers:: Bernard Maybeck, Henry Gutterson, John Gregg, Julia Morgan
Quality of Information:: Moderate
Marked:: No
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided assistance in the landscaping and improvements at Berkeley’s Civic Center Park, c 1940-41.

“… the land acquisition and most of the construction costs were covered by a local bond issue of $125,000… Research done when the park was declared a city landmark in the late 1990’s indicated that at least two small wall-mounted fountains in the park (north and south of the central fountain) were constructed by WPA employees, although the park project remained incomplete at the onset of WWII. WPA support was also obtained for landscaping, benches, as well as for the acquisition and transportation of the mechanical parts of the Civic Center Park fountain that were purchased as surplus from the site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.”