Start Year: 1933

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and its successor, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), both engaged in improvement projects at the old Walter Reed General Hospital (as it was then known).  The entire army medical complex, covering around 80 acres, was closed down in 2011 and Walter Reed Army Medical Center  (as it came to be known) moved out to Bethesda MD.    The former site has been repurposed as the Children's National Hospital and a huge mixed commercial and residential development, The Parks at Walter Reed. CWA crews painted buildings, planted trees, and helped build an elevator shaft at the center...

Many improvements were made to the U.S Navy Yard and Naval Ammunition Depot (now called the Washington Navy Yard) throughout the New Deal, from 1934 to 1941. In 1933, the Washington Post reported that $325,000 had been allotted by the Public Works Administration (PWA) to improvements at the Navy Yard; the funds were dispensed in 1934 for the modernization of the heating plant.  A 1937 Navy report provides specifics on that work: “new concrete foundations, structural steel boiler supports, air-cooled boiler settings, stoker-fired furnaces, smoke breeching, coal chutes, forced-draft fans, operating platforms and walkways, boiler plant accessories, piping and electric wiring;...

In 1933-34, the CWA erected a wharf in Occoquan. The PWA and CCC also worked on other nearby improvements. The original docks and wharves have been replaced over time due to disastrous floods in 1965 and 1974, but the photos shown here the documented site where New Deal works were conducted in Occoquan.

Bryce Canyon was originally designated as a national monument by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 and became a national park through an act of Congress in 1928. The park covers 35,835 acres in south-central Utah. The New Deal greatly improved Bryce Canyon National Park.  Along with the National Park Service, the Public Works Administration (PWA) provided special funds, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked continuously in the park, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was also active. The National Park Service recognizes the CCC's contribution on its website for Bryce Canyon NP, but not that of the PWA or WPA:  “During the 1930s...

Takoma Recreation Center is a large public recreational facility in Washington D.C., containing buildings, swimming pool, tennis courts and other facilities. New Deal agencies did extensive work on the site, 1933-36, as part of a larger Capital Parks improvement program assisted by the Civil Work Adminstration (CWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The WPA alone undertook a million dollar program of improvements to district parks in 1935-36. The work at Takoma Recreation Center included: "Swimming pools and field house constructed; baseball diamonds, athletic fields graded and equipment installed; landscaping and lawn area at field house constructed; parking areas...

The present Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling is the site of the former Anacostia US Naval Air Station and the former Bolling Air Field, both founded in 1918.  Bolling Field was absorbed into the Naval Air Station in the 1940s and a new Bolling Air Force Base constructed just to the south in 1948.  Those facilities were merged again in 2010, and the joint base is currently home to several functions, including a naval facility, a large heliport and a Secret Service base.   From 1933 to 1942, New Deal agencies were busy at the two older facilities, making improvements of various kinds....

Anacostia Park is one of Washington DC's two largest parks and recreation areas, along with Rock Creek Park.  It covers over 1200 acres along the Anacostia River from South Capitol Street SE to the Maryland boundary in NE.  The New Deal improved the park in major ways, after the Capital Parks system was put under the control of the National Park Service (NPS) by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. New Deal public works agencies developed such key features of the park as Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, Langston Golf Course and Anacostia Pool (see linked pages). Besides those major elements, improvements included,...

In 1933-34, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) worked at the United States Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery repairing the grounds and cleaning tombstones.  It is one of the country’s oldest national cemeteries, the final resting place for more than 14,000 veterans, mostly from the Civil War

The present Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling is the site of the former Anacostia US Naval Air Station and the former Bolling Air Field, both founded in 1918.  Bolling Field was absorbed into the Naval Air Station in the 1940s and a new Bolling Air Force Base constructed just to the south in 1948.  Those facilities were merged again in 2010, and the joint base is currently home to several functions, including a naval facility, a large heliport and a Secret Service base.   From 1933 to 1942, New Deal agencies were busy at the two older facilities, making improvements of various kinds....

From 1933 to 1941, New Deal relief workers added a number of new animal exhibit areas to the National Zoo, as well as improving existing enclosures.  The following are sketches of the significant work performed at a dozen areas, taken from the Zoo’s annual reports, with the relevant relief agency and years in parentheses.  Many of these exhibit improvements appear to still exist today, as shown in the photographs below.  Further verification is needed, but much of the stone and concrete work is typical of the New Deal era. Antelope and wild sheep exhibit “Replacing old and unsatisfactory frame structure by a series...