Start Year: 1941

The New York Times reported in 1941 that, as part of WPA efforts, Brooklyn would receive six new playgrounds, located at: "Third Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, Second Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, Fort Hamilton Parkway and Fifty-second Street, Albany and Foster Avenues, Park and Nostrand Avenues and Eastern Parkway Extension and Fulton Street." D'Emic Playground , so named in 1973 after a local community stalwart, is, according to New York City's Parks Department website, "bordered by 3rd Avenue, 34th and 35th Streets. The City of New York acquired the site in 1940 in connection with acquisition of land for the Gowanus Expressway,...

The New York Times reported in 1941 that WPA labor was to develop a playground at Bailey Avenue and West 234th Street in the Bronx. Bailey Playground now resides on that site: "WPA crews are busy on twelve other parks and playground projects in other parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx ...  A plot originally acquired for school purposes in 1929 will become the site of a playground at Bailey Avenue and West 234th Street, the Bronx.  A large wading pool is included in the plans." In August 1943, at the end of the New Deal, the Parks Department announced the opening of this...

The New York Times reported in Sept. 1941 that "WPA crews are busy on twelve other park and playground projects in other parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx ... At Harris Park, Bedford Park Boulevard and 205th Street, the Bronx, a new ten-acre athletic field is being developed. When completed it will contain a brick field house, concrete bleachers, four baseball and two softball diamonds, four football fields with removable goal posts, a flagpole, benches and drinking fountains. The department intends to plant 17,500 honeysuckle vines on the steep slopes around the field."

The Harlem Meer is an artificial lake at the north end of Central Park, added to the original park by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux on the site of a former marsh. The New York Times reported in Sept. 1941 that the WPA, in conjunction with New York's Department of Parks, was working to improve Central Park for Harlem residents in "the area from Conservatory Gardens to 110th Street." "Major attention," The Times wrote, was being "given to the fourteen-acre lake and the series of rocky knolls rising from its southern bank." The WPA constructed a masonry wall "a foot high"...

The New York Times reported in Sept. 1941 that the WPA worked on the "reconstruction of John Jay Park along the East River Drive, between Seventy-sixth and Seventy-eighth Streets." Specific improvements included the installation of a new diving pool with concrete bleachers; the remodeling of an "old bath building" to "include a recreation room, gymnasium and auditorium"; and a new "completely equipped playground." A May 1942 Department of Parks press release further reported that the WPA had relocated the concession building, paved areas of the park, installed benches and planted trees.

Among the traffic improvement projects in Brooklyn undertaken by the WPA and described by the New York Times in 1941 was that which impacted a major traffic artery connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan: the Manhattan Bridge and Flatbush Avenue Extension. The work would " Brooklyn-bound automobiles during the evening rush hours and for a greater diffusion of traffic ..." One notable "hazardous reverse curve and steep grade" was eliminated entirely. The WPA also added additional traffic lanes, removing "heavy granite walls and balustrades" so to ease a major traffic bottleneck. Along the Flatbush Avenue Extension three safety islands were added between Lafayette...

The New York Times reported in late 1941 that WPA laborers had begun construction of a new playground at 3rd Ave. and 64th St. in Brooklyn, NY. The 1.25-acre plot was to contain several recreational facilities.

The New York Times reported that WPA laborers had begun work in late 1941 on a playground consisting of "two and one-third acres ... The facilities will include a brick comfort station, concrete wading pool, irrigated sandpit and mothers' sitting area, swings, slides, handball court, pipe-frame exercising unit, and areas for skating, basketball and softball." The completion of the project was announced in June 1942.

The New York Times reported that WPA laborers had begun work in late 1941 on a playground on the "eastern half of the block bounded by Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, East 108th Street and East 109th Street." The playground was built for a new school to be built adjacent to it the following year.

The New York Times reported in 1941 that the WPA was to be involved with several street improvements in Brooklyn, including the "elimination of a mile-long traffic hazard on Utica Avenue between the trolley track areas." A trolley line ran along a 4.2-mile stretch of Utica Avenue between Fulton Street and Avenue N, making it difficult to determine the stretch of Utica Avenue affected by this project.