Long Island City Sites

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.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided resources for the construction of what was then known as the Bowery Bay Pumping Station. The facility, which bears a 1940 cornerstone, has since been expanded. "Under the auspices of the New York Department of Sanitation, between 1937 and 1944, three new wastewater treatment plants were constructed — Wards Island in Manhattan, and Bowery Bay and Tallman Island in Queens. These facilities were designed to reduce pollutants in the Harlem River and in the East River, whose dark and murky waters had some of the lowest dissolved oxygen concentrations in the harbor. During the summer...

In 1939 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissioned a set of four cast reliefs for inclusion on the facade of the then-new Bowery Bay Pumping Station in Queens, New York. The works, which depict men at work engaging in sewage management jobs, were created by Cesare Stea and still grace the front of the building along Berrian Blvd.

A money-saving, efficiency-increasing Department of Purchase warehouse in Long Island City was constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It is still in use by the city, presently by the Board of Education. The New York Times reported in 1938: The new  six-story warehouse "will occupy a plot, 270 by 426 feet, on the northwest corner of Forty-fourth Drive and Vernon Boulevard. It will be built by WPA labor, the city supplying the materials. Its estimated cost is $2,000,000."

In Sept. 1941 the New York Times described a playground being constructed by the WPA in Queens at "Forty-Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first Street." This site, Murray Playground, is still in use today. New York City's Parks Department writes: "The City of New York acquired the land that constitutes Murray Playground in four parts by purchase and condemnation between 1941 and 1945. The park stretches from 11th to 21st Street, and is bounded by 45th Avenue and 45th Road." A 1942 Department of Parks press release announcing the park's opening describes the work done by the WPA: "A wide mall, lined with benches and...

Parks received the property for this park from the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity in 1940. It completed this playground, originally called the P.S. 166 Playground after the adjacent school, in June 1941. The press release announcing the playground's opening explained the WPA's work: "New concrete street curbs have been installed along 35 Avenue and Steinway Street and the existing concrete sidewalks have been widened to 18 feet. A 5 foot wide granite block panel extends along the inside of the fence with benches spaced between the new 3 inch calipher pin oaks. A battery of kindergarten swings for pre-school...

Parks acquired this land to the West and the South of the WPA's Queensbridge Housing development in 1939. The press release announcing the completion of a WPA playground on the site in July 1941 explained: "The southerly section lying alongside and under the bridge structure has been developed for specialized intensive forms of recreation adapted to the needs of various age groups. Central to this section is a new comfort station located on the line of 10 Street and surrounded by play apparatus for small children: sand pit, wading pool, swings, etc., and extending to the east a series of game...