Bronx Sites

The 227th Street Playground in Bronx Park, June 2015, built by the New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA) and opened on June 25, 1941. From the NYC Parks Department press release: The new development covers an area of about two acres in the sloping lawn between the Parkway and the Bronx River. The playground itself is semi-circular in shape, contains various items of play apparatus including swings, slides, see-saws, jungle gym, a sand pit and a shower basin, and is paved with bituminous material. It is fenced with chain link fabric for purposes of control and a number of trees have...

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included the 0.4-mile stretch of Allerton Avenue between Pearsall Ave. and Eastchester Rd.

"The Allerton Ballfields are not mentioned by name in the NYC Parks Department Press releases because they were part of the same project: the construction of a large playground alongside four ball fields. Today they have separate labels: French Charley's Playground and Allerton Ballfields. The Department of Parks Press Release, July 29, 1940, says " will be developed with two children's playgrounds, one on the westerly side near 204 Street, and the other on Bronx Boulevard opposite Rosewood Street . Two softball diamonds and also a regulation baseball diamond will be provided." These are the diamonds adjacent to French Charley's...

The historic Arthur Avenue Retail Market, located in the heart of the Bronx's Little Italy, was constructed with the assistance of the federal Work Projects Administration (WPA). The market, one of eight similar projects in the city, opened October 29, 1940.

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included the 1.1-mile stretch of Astor Avenue between Wallace Ave. and Eastchester Rd.

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 federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included two stretches of Beach Avenue in the Soundview section of the Bronx: (a) between "Bronx River Avenue" and 'Sound View' Avenue; and (b) between 'Sound View' and Watson Avenues.

NYC Subway Station on the IND Concourse Line. Part of the IND Subway Line construction in the 1930s, built with the aid of PWA funds along with other IND stations of the time.

Parks first constructed a playground at the intersection of 182nd St. and Belmont Ave. in 1937. A press release from July of that year announced the opening of "five playgrounds, constructed by the Department of Parks with relief labor and funds," noting that "These playgrounds are five of the twenty-four sites in neglected areas selected by the Commissioner of Parks and acquired by condemnation after authorization by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment on July 15, 1936." One of these five playgrounds was located on part of what is now Belmont Playground. Today's Parks website explains that at its opening in...

The historic Boulevard Station post office in the Bronx, New York was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds in 1936. The building is still in use today.

The federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) put many men to work starting in 1935 with street repair and maintenance projects that improved roads throughout the Bronx. The work pictured here shows WPA laborers on the Bronx Boulevard construction project.  

The Bronx County Courthouse was built on the cusp between FDR's governorship in New York and the federal New Deal of his presidency.  It was approved in 1928 and construction begun in 1931, but the work was not completed until 1933 or 1934, when Mayor LaGuardia officially dedicated the building. As researcher Frank da Cruz explains, " FDR did not become president until 1933, before that he was the governor of New York State and had already begun the New Deal right here to provide work relief and build worthwhile projects, such as the Bronx campus of Hunter College." There was evidently an injection of...

Later known as the Bronx House of Detention for Men, the Bronx County Jail was constructed during the 1930s, a project aided by federal Public Works Administration funds (Docket No. NY 9050X). Located at East 151st St. and River Ave., the building was designed Joseph H. Freedlander and constructed at an estimated cost of $1,418,529. The building was ("substantially") finished on November 20, 1937. According to a PWA architect's survey, the eight-to-nine-story, 248-foot-long enamel-white brick structure was "of such ornate design that it is readily mistaken for an office structure." The building contained 243 cells, "of which 21 are for women." The...

The historic Bronx General Post Office was built from 1935 to 1937.   It was designed by consulting architect Thomas Harlan Ellett (1880-1951) for the Treasure Department's Office of the Supervising Architect, Louis Simon. The building is constructed of smooth gray brick, features graceful arched window openings, and is surrounded at the base by a granite terrace. The post office is fronted by two New Deal sculptures by Henry Kreis and Charles Rudy.  Inside there is a large set of murals by Ben Shahn.  The sculptures were landmarked by the city of New York in 1975 and the murals were landmarked in 2013. In 2014 the post office was closed...

The Bronx General Post Office houses a set of 13 magnificent mural panels—collectively titled "Resources of America"— by Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson Shahn. A Lehman College Guide to Public Art in the Bronx has this to say about the Shahn murals: "In the fall of 1938 Ben Shahn, assisted by his wife Bernarda Bryson Shahn, began work on the cartoons for a major cycle of thirteen egg tempera on plaster frescos for the Bronx General Post Office. The project was created under the US Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, a new deal art program which produced public works in federal...

The Bronx General Post Office contains superb examples of New Deal art, added in 1938-39 under the Treasure Section of Fine Arts program.  Inside are 13 mural panels by Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda;  on the exterior wall, flanking the entrance, are  two limestone sculptures by Charles Rudy and Henry Kreis.  On the left, as one faces the building, is "Noah" by Rudy; on the right, "The Letter" by Kreis. A Guide to Public Art in the Bronx from Lehman College has this to add: " The awards, announced by the Treasury Department, were made unanimously by the judges, Paul Manship, Edward McCartan and Maurice Sterne, sculptors, and...

The Bronx General Post Office contains superb examples of New Deal art, added in 1938-39 under the Treasure Section of Fine Arts program.  Inside are 13 mural panels by Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda;  on the exterior wall, flanking the entrance, are  two limestone sculptures by Charles Rudy and Henry Kreis.  On the left, as one faces the building, is "Noah" by Rudy; on the right, "The Letter" by Kreis. A Guide to Public Art in the Bronx from Lehman College has this to add: " The awards, announced by the Treasury Department, were made unanimously by the judges, Paul Manship, Edward McCartan and Maurice Sterne, sculptors, and...

"Until 1937, the north portion of Bronx Park was owned by the NY Botanical Garden and the NY Zoological Society and had no public facilities such as paths, lighting, playgrounds, or athletic fields. As part of the Bronx River Parkway extension project, the Parks Department gained jurisdiction and, with Works Progress Administration labor, began to convert the entire area into a park. This was one big New Deal project with many parts, including: Reiss Field on the east side (1939); Waring Playground on the east side (1939); Rosewood Playground on the east side (1940); 227th Street Playground on the east side (1941); French Charley's Playground...

New York City's Parks Department writes: "Ranaqua, the Bronx headquarters of the Department of Parks & Recreation of the City of New York, is located in the southeastern part of Bronx Park, east of the northbound lanes of the Bronx River Parkway. The name is the Reckgawank Algonquin (Delaware) word for "End Place," the peninsula originally sold to Jonas Bronck in 1639. The three-story brick building, with its adjacent garages, yards and shops, was built by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) and opened by Robert Moses in 1937."

Researcher Frank da Cruz has done some serious groundwork to uncover the history of Reiss Field on the east side of Bronx Park, opposite Reiss Place, just north of Pelham Parkway. This ball field stands precisely where the Parks Department press release of October 31, 1939, announces a playground "designed by the Department of Parks and built for the Park Department by the Work Projects Administration": a "1.36 acre playground in Bronx Park adjacent to Bronx Park East opposite Reiss Place, contains one shuffleboard, four horseshoe pitching, five paddle tennis, two volleyball and two basketball courts, completely encircled by a...

Researcher Frank da Cruz has gathered research from a variety of sources here to conclude that the New Deal had some role in the development of the Trojan Courts area of the east side of Bronx Park: This area includes the Trojan baseball fields (named after the Bronx Trojans, a 1930s amateur baseball team), the Trojan Courts (game courts), Brady Playground, and Ben Abrams (formerly Lydig) Playground. Records of specific projects in this area are scant; we have only the May 4, 1936, press release from which it is clear that a baseball field was built on the site in 1936, and...

"Waring Playground in Bronx Park, across Bronx Park East from the block between Waring Avenue and Thwaite Place, June 17, 2015. It opened on September 28, 1939, as part of the larger project of developing the land turned over by the New York Botanical Garden to the Parks Department. Although the Parks Department's September 27, 1939 press release does not explicitly credit the WPA or any other New Deal agency with building or funding this facility, it states that it "is a unit in a chain of children's recreation areas already built or now under construction along the easterly boundaries...

The WPA dredged the Bronx River between East 177th St. and East 180th St. during the 1930s. A 1935 allotment provided $7,426 for the project. WPA Official Project No. 65-97-446(?).

During the last decade of the 1800s, John Grignola carved this granite statue of a Civil War Union soldier for Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. After years of neglect, WPA workers located the statue in the Bronx River, refurbished it, and moved it to another Bronx River location. According to New York City's Department of Parks & Recreation, the statue never made it into the Woodlawn Cemetery, either because it was damaged or because it was rejected by the cemetery. John B. Lazzari, owner of "a local tombstone quarry and monuments yard,"  purchased the statue and displayed "..it on his property on the west...

From 1934 to 1935 the Bronx Terminal Market expansion project took place with New Deal support. The Market was one of eight indoor markets that New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia built or expanded with federal support. It was part of the Mayor's campaign to clear unregulated pushcart vendors out of the streets and into sheltered, regulated markets. The Market Expansion project improved and provided new facilities for receiving and distributing produce throughout upper Manhattan and the Bronx. The Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society tells us that the new markets created by LaGuardia "...used federal WPA funds to create...indoor markets that were required...

From 1938 to 1939 federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers constructed a freight shed at the north end of the Bronx Terminal Market. Much of the funding for the project came from a $250,000 allocation from the New Deal Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). A city appropriation of $130,000 paid for the rest. Researcher Frank da Cruz has collected evidence about the freight shed's construction which make clear that, at the time, the project received widespread praise in the local press for reducing the price of food in the surrounding area, by allowing for more direct distribution of wholesale produce. Mayor LaGuardia initiated the formation...

The Triborough Bridge is one of three major bridges, along with the Henry Hudson and the Bronx-Whitestone, built during the New Deal era to link the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, and tie together the expanding highway system in and out of New York City.  Robert Moses was the master planner of New York from the 1920s to the 1920s, and one of Moses' seats of power was the Triborough Bridge Authority, which built this and other bridges. Moses used New Deal funds liberally to build the projects he had in mind for the city. But he did not...

A New York City Parks Department press release from August 26, 1939 describes the WPA’s role in developing what is now known as Bufano Park: “The Department of Parks announces that the two acre playground bounded by Bradford, Edison, LaSalle and Waterbury Avenues, in the Borough of The Bronx, will be opened to the general public without ceremony on Saturday, August 26th... This playground was planned by the Department of Parks and the work performed by the Work Projects Administration. Besides a completely equipped children's playground with wading pool, it includes eight handball courts, a softball diamond and a large asphalt surfaced...

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included the 0.4-mile stretch of Buhre Avenue between Mulford Ave. and what was then Eastern Blvd. (Eastern Boulevard provided the foundation for what is now the Bruckner Expressway.)

The New York City Department of Parks announced the opening of Cedar Playground, along with twelve other playgrounds, in December 1935. Although the release does not explicitly mention federal funding, researcher Frank da Cruz explains here why "it is safe to say that every single project completed by the NYC Park Department during the 1930s was federally funded to some degree." After April 1935, the WPA was especially involved in the development of the New York park system.

The building housing FDNY Engine 70, Ladder 53 on City Island was constructed in 1939 by the Work Projects Administration. This firehouse has a plaque confirming its New Deal origin. This is one of the few New Deal plaques in New York. The City Island Firehouse plaque reads. CITY OF NEW YORK F. H. LA GUARDIA MAYOR FIRE DEPARTMENT JOHN J. McELLIGOTT FIRE CHIEF & COMMISSIONER DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION UNDER THE SUPOERVSION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS IRVING V. A. HUIE COMMISSIONER ERECTED BY WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION 1939 The building is still in service and houses two fire companies and two trucks. In 2012, the firehouse was proposed for closure, as part of Mayor Bloomberg's...

City Island Road, between Pelham Bridge and the City Island Bridge, was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The WPA developed a "wholly new sewage system" for City Island, which had previously "depended on an antiquated system of individual street sewers, cesspools and septic tanks."

The 17-acre Claremont Park in the Bronx was extensively renovated and improved in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration. The renovated park opened on December 7, 1940. A press release from opening day describes WPA work in the park: "This park has been redesigned by the Department of Parks and constructed by the Work Projects Administration to provide wider year round usage for all ages and groups of citizens of the surrounding community. Besides three new children's playgrounds which were opened on September 14 of this year, the old playground at the East 170 Street end of the park has been...

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included three modest stretches of Croes Avenue in the Soundview section of the Bronx: (a) between Story and 'Sound View' Avenues; (b) from Watson Avenue south (a dead-end stretch of Croes Ave.); and (c) between Gleason and Westchester Avenues.

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included the stretch of Crosby Avenue between Middletown Rd. and what was then Eastern Blvd. (Eastern Boulevard provided the foundation for what is now the Bruckner Expressway.)

"This Olympic-size swimming pool and bathhouse complex opened on July 24, 1936. It was one of ten dedicated that year by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888-1981). The project, funded by a special Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant of $10 million, featured a 925,000 gallon swimming pool, 39,000 gallon wading pool, 450,000 gallon diving pool and a bathhouse. The latter was designed by noted architect Aymar Embury II (1880-1966), and is an art deco interpretation of a French castle." This pool was one of many WPA projects in Crotona Park.

The park existed before the Depression, but was completely rebuilt in 1934-41 by the WPA: "As ice skating grew popular in the Bronx around the turn of the century, Parks paved the perimeter of Indian Pond and installed a warming hut and concession stand for skaters. In the 1930s, Works Progress Administration (WPA) employees built the boathouse on the east side of the pond and entirely rebuilt the area around the lake. Other projects in Crotona Park completed during the tenure of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888-1981) included the construction or renovation of five baseball diamonds, twenty tennis courts, twenty-six handball...

"Indian Pond and boathouse at Crotona Park, June 2014. The boat house was built by the WPA as part of the massive reconstruction of Crotona that was completed in 1941. The pond is covered with algae and choked with vegetation; it was restored in 2009 but then there was a problem with pond scum that has not yet been addressed... According to the Parks Department, the boathouse rented boats until the the 1970s. In 1984 it was briefly a nature center for Urban Park Rangers, and as of 2001, it's a nature center again."   (https://www.kermitproject.org)

Devoe Park "dates from 1915, but the playgrounds and athletic facilities were added by the Parks Department and WPA in 1935. This is one of seven NYC parks opened (or re-opened) on Friday, November 22, 1935, in a ceremony where the speakers were WPA Administrator Harry L. Hopkins, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, Park Commissioner Robert Moses, and some other officials, as indicated in the NYC Parks Department Press Release for November 21 of that year. Playgrounds were added at each end of the park (that have been renovated since then), and then in 1941 the 'free play area' including...