Survival: Unknown

In March 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) carried out improvements to the playground at Emery Park Elementary School in Alhambra, CA. The work consisted of grading approximately 6,000 square yards and paving.

From April to June 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a pedestrian tunnel at Valley Boulevard and 6th Street in Alhambra, CA. It was intended to improve pedestrian safety for Ramona Elementary School students. According to a WPA official, "This tunnel, built of reinforced concrete, is 165 feet long, 8 feet high and seven feet wide; the stair approaches are 22 feet each. The walls are plastered and pebble-dashed and an Auto-Electric Light system installed. The approach walls are stairs are guarded by ornamental iron rails. When excavating, a sand formation was encountered at the North approach which caused considerable...

According to an index of WPA projects in the National Archives, the WPA constructed a sewage disposal plant, sedimentation tanks, a sludge digestion tank, and dripping beds in Lorton in 1936. In 1938, the Washington Post reported that funds were allocated for the PWA to conduct further improvements. Exact location and status of project unknown, but the facility could now be the site of the Norman M. Cole, Jr. Pollution Control Plant, Virginia's largest such facility.

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,...

Arches National Monument was established in 1929 with only 4,500 acres and enlarged dramatically to over 33,000 acres by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 (Arches became a National Park in 1971).  Some of the first improvements to the monument were made by workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  CCC camp NP-7 was established in nearby Moab UT in April 1940 and lasted until March 1942, one of the last in the country to be closed. CCC 'boys' worked on roads, trails and erosion control, and notably a headquarters building and bridge over the wash that often blocked access to the...

The National Training School for Boys was a federal juvenile detention center for boys under seventeen, located in the Fort Lincoln area of Washington, DC. In 1935-37, Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief labor was used to make various improvements around the school.  The WPA work card on the project has these details:  "Landscape and improve grounds at National Training School for Boys; Enlarge and improve athletic fields at National Training School for Boys; Improve grounds at the National Training School for Boys, including terracing, sloping banks, cutting, filling, and grading, seeding, constructing structures for gully control, and performing appurtenant work; for erosion...

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...

Works Progress Administration (WPA) records in the National Archives report that the WPA constructed a recreation building at the McMillan Playground in northwest DC and that New Deal wood carvings were installed inside. The building opened in 1938. The playground was likely in the Bloomingdale neighborhood near the McMillan reservoir. The Park View DC blog reports that in 1934, Eleanor Roosevelt participated in a tree planting ceremony at the playground, which according to the writer was located at 1st and Bryant streets NW. There no longer appears to be a McMillan Playground, but we are told that the recreation building is still...

Newspaper articles from the 1930s report that a mixture of New Deal funds and private spending in the amount of $975,000 were used to construct the Bureau of Public Roads Research Center.  According to the Bureau of Public Roads annual reports, 1937-1939, the new research facilities were constructed on the "Abingdon Plantation," also known as "the old Custis Estate near Gravelly Point."  This area today is roughly where the Washington National Airport parking garages are situated.  A small green area between the two garages is a remnant of the plantation  (the CCC did historic preservation work here). A 1939 Evening Star article says...

Works Progress Administration (WPA) project cards for 1938 at the National Archives indicate that the WPA was charged with making improvements to the grounds, buildings, and distribution systems at the U.S. Naval Observatory.  Photograph cards on file at the archives show a storage shed overhauled by the WPA and that WPA workers also led tours of the observatory at the time. The Navy's Bulletin #38 notes that, "At the Naval Observatory only limited funds have been available and they have been expended for repairs to buildings including the modernization of dangerous electric wiring. The available funds have also been used for the...