Albany Sites

The Federal Writers' Project's guide to New York State explained: "Bleecker Stadium, Clinton Ave. between Swinburne Park and Ontario St., with a field house of Georgian Colonial design, was built by the WPA. It seats 10,000 and has two baseball fields, a football field, a quarter-mile track, jumping and vaulting pits, and tennis courts." "The stadium opened on Thanksgiving Day 1934. The clubhouse was built in 1940 under the Works Progress Administration..."   (wikipedia.org)

Albany, New York's historic James T. Foley U.S. Courthouse was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds as the city's main post office, courthouse, and custom house. "The architects completed their plans in 1931 and the following year, the government awarded the construction contract to Kenny Brothers, Inc., of New York City. Prominent officials and the public gathered for a cornerstone-laying ceremony on August 18, 1933, and construction was completed in 1934. The building had an exterior bridge connecting the nearby rail station with the post office, which occupied the entire first two floors." (gsa.gov)

This series of murals painted by Ethel Parsons hangs in the James T. Foley Courthouse, originally the Albany Post Office, in Albany, New York. From the General Services Administration entry on the courthouse: "Marble pilasters divide the main lobby into nine bays, each articulated with a ceiling mural. Artist Ethel M. Parsons painted the oil-on-canvas murals in 1935, depicting each of the seven continents as well as the North Pole and the United States. Interspersed with the murals are plaster plaques by Italian artist Enea Biafora Portraying famous Americans, including Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, as portrayed on...

Loudonville Reservoir's Basin C was constructed by the federal Work Projects Administration. The agency described its accomplishments in a 1940 report: "Basin C, Loudonville Reservoir, huge concrete retainer, holds 93,000,000 gallons, a guarantee of ten days supply for Albany against any stoppage. Worked with double shifts excavation exceeded rate set on Basins A and B, build under private contract. Concrete was laid in 98 days. ... The City of Albany several years ago expended more than $6,000,000 to develop a mountain water supply eliminating the old supply which was derived from the Hudson River. The new WPA built Basin was the...

University at Albany, State University of New York's Hawley Hall was opened in September 1909 as the Auditorium, one of three buildings (with the Science and Administration Buildings) on the original Western Avenue (Downtown) Campus. On December 12, 1927 the Auditorium was named Hawley Hall. The building served as an auditorium and gymnasium until February 1933 when the first floor was opened as the College library. Since the Great Depression the Dewey Graduate Library, at the University at Albany Downtown Campus, features numerous murals designed by William Brantley Van Ingen (1858‐1955), "a student of John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, as...