- State:
- WASHINGTON-DC
- Site Type:
- Infrastructure and Utilities, Flood and Erosion Control
- New Deal Agencies:
- Civil Works Administration (CWA), Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Started:
- 1933
- Completed:
- 1936
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
In 1936 Work: A Journal of Progress reported that in 1933-34 the Civil Works Administration (CWA) relief workers constructed 245 feet of seawall at the Sewer Division property yard and a cable shed at the garage. The exact site was not specified.
Nevertheless, the Water and Sewer Authority (then known as the Sewer Division) owns a large waterside property at the foot of First Street on the Anacostia River that would be a likely place for such a seawall. This is further confirmed by a later report in Work: A Journal of Progress that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was soon to complete a seawall at First and O Streets SE – the same Sewer Division/Water and Sewer Authority property. The WPA often completed or extended such projects begun under the short-lived CWA.
Old concrete seawall is readily visible along the river bank of the Water & Sewer Authority property, east of Diamond Teague Park and inside the Anacostia Riverwalk trail (see photo).
Source notes
District of Columbia Works Progress Administration, “Guarding Washington Health,” Work: A Journal of Progress, Vol. 1, No. 1, Sept. 1936, p. 27
District of Columbia Works Progress Administration, “WPA Covers the Waterfront,” Work: A Journal of Progress, Vol. 1, No. 4, Dec. 1936, p. 12
Site originally submitted by Brent McKee - wpatoday.org on May 19, 2021.
Additional contributions by Richard A Walker.
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