• Astoria Health Center - Astoria NY
    The city Health Center, meant to serve Long Island City and Astoria, at the southwest corner of 31st Ave. and 14th St., was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). "This center and eight others are being built as WPA projects," The New York Times reported in 1936.
  • Astoria Health Playground - Astoria NY
    On July 2, 1938, the Department of Parks announced the opening of a playground on the site of what is now the Astoria Health Playground: "In Queens, at 14th Street south of 31st Avenue adjacent to the Astoria Health Center, the new playground is equipped with swings, see-saws, play houses, slide, sand pit and a portable shower. A brick comfort station with facilities for boys and girls, and permanent concrete benches are also provided. The perimeter of the entire playground is landscaped with shade trees. …The work was performed by the Works Progress Administration, but planned and inspected by the Department of...
  • Astoria Heights Playground - Astoria NY
    The Astoria Heights Playground, covering most of the block between 30th Rd., 31st Ave., 45th St. and 46th St., was developed by the Parks Department and the WPA in two stages between 1937 and 1938. In September 1937, a playground for small children was opened, "as well as handball courts for older children and benches for mothers and guardians." Just over two years later, the Parks Department announced the completion of the rest of the playground: "he new 2.3 acre area supplements and includes the small recreational area opened in 1937, and rounds out the entire block, the southerly end of which...
  • Astoria Park - Astoria NY
    The 56-acre park dates from the early 20th century, but "major improvements in Astoria Park were undertaken by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and the Works Progress Administration during a hot summer in 1936. The stunning pool complex opened on July 4 of that year and hosted the swimming and diving trials for the U.S. Olympic Teams in 1936 and 1964" (NYC Parks). "Besides the swimming pool, various playgrounds and comfort stations were added or renovated during the course of the New Deal using relief labor" (kermitproject.org). This included "an adult play area with handball, basketball, horseshoe and shuffleboard courts, horizontal...
  • Astoria Park Pool - Astoria NY
    Astoria Park  pool opened on July 2, 1936. It was the largest of the eleven WPA pools built throughout the city that year. It was the site of the Olympic swimming and diving trials for the 1936 Olympics, just as Randall's Island Stadium was for track and field. "Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, an avid swimmer himself, recognized the importance of aquatic recreation and launched a campaign to open eleven new pools throughout the city during the summer of 1936. The labor and construction came from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), whose administrator Harry Hopkins described the pool in Queens as, 'The finest in the world.'...
  • Columbus Triangle Statue - Astoria NY
    "The City acquired this land on July 19, 1910, and since the 1920s Italian-Americans of Queens have gathered here to celebrate Columbus. The Board of Aldermen, on April 1, 1930, named the site for the famed explorer. The Italian Chamber of Commerce installed a bronze tablet here on October 12, 1937, indicating its intention to build a full monument to Columbus. In 1938, with funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Italian sculptor Angelo Racioppi was commissioned to create the seven foot tall bronze of a youthful Christopher Columbus standing in front of a ship’s tiller. At the unveiling event on...
  • P.S. 166: Henry Gradstein Elementary School - Astoria NY
    The Queens school now known as the Henry Gradstein Elementary School was built during the 1930s. Construction was sponsored by the federal Public Works Administration (PWA).