Hempstead Sites

The federal Work Projects Administration worked to improve Mitchel Field (later Mitchel Air Force Base), located in Hempstead, New York, during the 1930s and early 1940s. The WPA constructed the air base's runways as well as a hangar addition and other structures. The field, after being closed in 1961, was given to Nassau County for redevelopment. Nassau Community College, Mitchel County Park, and the Nassau Veterans Coliseum now lie on the former air base site.

These two murals by Peppino Mangravite were funded by TRAP in 1937. They depict, respectively, a scene of the settlement of Hempstead and the arrival of British dirigible R.34 with the first air mail in 1919.

In 1938 Carl E. Noble completed six oil-on-canvas murals depicting the history of firefighting for the Hempstead Volunteer Fire Department’s Southside Hose Co. No. 2. The murals wrap around the company's second-floor meeting room. Noble painted the murals for the Hempstead Fire Department under the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The titles of the six murals are: Pioneer Fire Fighting, Old Time Fire Gong, First Hempstead Hose Cart, Hempstead Riding Academy Fire, and Modern Fire Fighting Equipment (2 murals). The murals, while not generally accessible to the public, are still intact. The Long Island Historical Journal recounts...

Photo caption: "The Hempstead Library, located on the northwest corner of Fulton and Terrace Avenue between 1927 and 1951. A federal WPA project underway on Terrace Avenue is visible at right of photograph." The exact nature of this infrastructure project is presently unclear to Living New Deal.