Start Year: 1937

The old main post office in Arlington VA was constructed in 1937 by the Treasury Department to consolidate postal services in the surrounding area. "As the first federal building in the County, the post office provided a focal point for establishing the identity of Arlington and unifying the area’s disparate suburban villages into a single community." (Arlington webpage) The architecture is Federalist/Colonial/Georgian Revival – not unusual for East Coast post offices built during the New Deal – and was designed by the team under Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the Treasury. It features a central domed portico flanked by tripartite...

The historic Parkville Station post office in Brooklyn, New York was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds in 1937. The building is still in use today.

The historic post office in Perth Amboy, New Jersey was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds in 1937. The building is still in use today.

This post office was built with Treasury Department funding in 1938, and originally held an Alexander Sambugnac sculpture. In 1988, the post office closed, and the building has been occupied by several restaurants since. From the Rochester-Avon Historical Society entry for the site: Congressman George A. Dondero secured $39,000.00 in funding for a new United States Post Office in the village of Rochester, built in 1937-38 to replace its cramped leased quarters in the rear of the Masonic Block on Main Street. Louis A. Simon (1867-1958) was the supervising architect from the Department of the Treasury and the general contractor was the...

The historic main post office building in Far Rockaway, New York "was built in 1935, and is one of six post offices in New York State designed by architect Eric Kebbon as a consultant to the Office of the Supervising Architect. It is a two-story brick building with limestone trim and a low granite base in the Colonial Revival style. Its main façade features a centrally placed polygonal shaped frontispiece with a rounded dome inspired by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. It also has a grand entrance vestibule." (Wikipedia) The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Works Progress Administration (WPA) records in the National Archives report that in 1937 WPA workers were used to "Remodel, renovate, and paint buildings located at 460-476 C Street NW, together with other small supplementary buildings." The work included, "installation of plumbing and electrical facilities… demolishing and removing partitions, structures, equipment, etc., salvaging usable materials...". The purpose of the work was to render the buildings usable as offices and storage space by various departments of the District government. Exact location of the buildings in question was not given, but they have almost surely been demolished for subsequent federal office buildings, court houses and...

Roosevelt Park contains a WPA sculpture by Waylande Gregory entitled "Light Dispelling Darkness." "Most visitors to Roosevelt Park in Edison, New Jersey will pass by this empty fountain thinking not much of it, their attention focused on the globe perched high at the top. However, many fail to notice the evils dispelling from the center, which make the sculpture all the more interesting and relate a bit of creativity that its maker, artist Waylande Gregory envisioned when he designed it in 1937. “Light Dispelling Darkness” was part of a New Jersey Federal Arts Project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA...

Works Progress Administration (WPA) records in the National Archives report that in 1937 WPA labor was used to "erect a brick building in the city to be used as a combination carpentry and blacksmith shop by the Sewer Department." The location was not given, but is very likely to have been at the old Sewer Department site on the Anacostia River in the southeast quadrant of the district.   Next to the still-extant Water and Sewer Authority garage is a group of brick buildings of the same era at the junction of First Street and Potomac Avenue. Any one of these,...

In 1937, the District of Columbia government contracted with the Fred Drew Co. to reconstruct the Municipal Fish Market Pier (also called Pier No. 1). The cost of the project was $20,000 (about $366,000 in 2020 dollars) and funds were provided via the District of Columbia Appropriation Act for 1937, signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt on June 23, 1936. The project was part of a broad New Deal initiative to modernize and beautify the Washington Channel and Southwest Waterfront areas. Work started on April 19, 1937 and was completed three months later, on July 13. The DC Government noted: “The...

The historic post office in Charleston, Missouri was constructed in 1937 with federal Treasury Department funds. The building, which houses an example of New Deal artwork, is still in service.