New York City Sites

The Harlem River Houses, together with First Houses in Manhattan and the Williamsburg Houses in Brooklyn, were the first federally-funded public housing projects in New York City.   The project was funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA Docket No. H-1302). Wikipedia states:  "The Harlem River Houses is a New York City Housing Authority public housing complex located between West 151st and West 153rd Streets and between Macombs Place and the Harlem River Drive in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The complex, which covers 9 acres (3.6 ha), was built in 1936-37 and opened in October 1937 – one of the...

A 2016 article celebrating Black History Month highlighted this unique and little known WPA mural by artist Aaron Douglas: "The Harlem Branch of the Y.M.C.A., which is located at at 180 West 135th Street, contains an exquisite example (though in need of a thorough restoration) of a rare African-American contribution to the Works Progress Administration (WPA)... While much of the building has been renovated over the years, some of the Y.M.C.A.’s original artwork by Alfred Floegel and noted African-American artists William E. Scott and Aaron Douglas remain. One of the murals was designed by Aaron Douglas, an African-American painter and illustrator whose works appear in...

The New York Times reported in Sept. 1941 that "WPA crews are busy on twelve other park and playground projects in other parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx ... At Harris Park, Bedford Park Boulevard and 205th Street, the Bronx, a new ten-acre athletic field is being developed. When completed it will contain a brick field house, concrete bleachers, four baseball and two softball diamonds, four football fields with removable goal posts, a flagpole, benches and drinking fountains. The department intends to plant 17,500 honeysuckle vines on the steep slopes around the field."

Today's NYC Parks website explains that the village of Whitestone (now the neighborhood of Whitestone in Queens) acquired this land in 1892.  Parks took over the 21 acre site in 1936 in conjunction with the construction of the Whitestone Parkway.  This site says that a children's playground opened on the site in 1939. However, the official opening of the playground was announced by the Parks Department on April 25, 1940: "Here recreation facilities nave been provided for all age groups. There are three separate children's completely equipped playgrounds, handball, horseshoe pitching, shuffleboard and basketball courts, a full-sized hard ball and a...

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 a modest stretch of Haviland Avenue from Castle Hill Ave. to Zerega Ave.

In 1938 William Karp completed the mural entitled "Armed with Learning and Reality, Looking from the Past to the Future" for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Amsterdam Avenue between 136 and 138th Street in New York City. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum closed in 1941, and the building was demolished in the mid 1950s. The Living New Deal needs further information to determine the current status of William Karp's WPA mural for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. William Karp worked as a master mural artist and administrator with the WPA Federal Art Project. Also included are images of Karp with friends at his home in...

The NYC Parks website explains that, "This playground received its name after the city purchased the land from the Heckscher Foundation for Children in 1935.  The property had served as a public playground since 1934.  When Parks took over, the property included a recreation building with a dental facility and an indoor play area.  The park was home to summer activities such as puppet shows, storytelling, and arts and crafts.  Originally, the playground was a little under one acre in size." The Department of Parks further improved the playground and officially opened it to the public in December 1935. As researcher...

The column of the Henry Hudson Memorial in Henry Hudson Park was created in 1909, but the bronze sculpture by Karl Bitter intended for the top of the column was never added. This was rectified in the 1930s.  In 1937, the Department of Parks reported that: "Park Commissioner Robert Moses, sole member of the Henry Hudson Parkway Authority, announces that the Authority will furnish the statue and he has retained Karl H. Gruppe, who for years was associated with Mr. Bitter, to undertake the reproduction of the original design. Fortunately, the sculptor's widow, who resides at 209 East 72nd Street, has...

The Henry Hudson Bridge carries the Henry Hudson Parkway over the Hudson River between the Bronx and Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan. The idea of a bridge in that spot had been raised as early as 1906, but resistance from local residents, among other things, prevented its construction until the 1930s, when Robert Moses became involved. While resistance to the location remained, in part because of the way the bridge would disturb the serenity of Inwood Hill Park, Moses was able to push the project through. He was determined to get this particular location in large part so that he...

In 1940, the WPA rehabilitated the "hourglass" intersection formed by Broadway, 6th Ave., 35th St. and 32nd St, the north end of which is known as Herald Square and the south end as Greeley Square. The project centered around the restoration and re-placing of a large sculptured clock originally constructed by Antoin Jean Carles in the late 1800s. The Parks press release announcing the completion of this work was especially long and enthusiastic: "The rehabilitation of the hour-glass intersection of Broadway and Sixth Avenue extending from 32nd Street to 35th Street is now completed. Elevated structures, and surface car tracks have...

The federal Works Progress Administration undertook a $93,900 project starting in 1935 to modernize and otherwise improve several public (now-former) bath facilities in Brooklyn, NY. The public baths at 486 Hicks Street were constructed in 1903; the building was "demolished in 1941 for construction of the BQE" (Brooklyn Relics). The facilities identified as part of the WPA project were: 209 Wilson Ave. Municipal Baths, Coney Island Duffield Street Hicks Street Pitkin Ave. Huron St. Montrose Ave.

Artist James Michael Newell painted this large multi-panel mural with WPA Federal Arts Project funding in 1938. The murals depict the "Evolution of Western Civilization." The murals begin with "primitive man building his society" and end with scenes from 1930s America. "When it was completed, Newell’s progressive mural was well received. It won top honors in the Architectural League’s fiftieth annual exhibition in 1936 and it was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s “New Horizons of American Art” show featuring art commissioned under the Federal Art Project.  By the late 1960s, however, in the crucible of the civil rights movement,...

What is now the High School of Fashion Industries began in the 1920s as a vocational program in a garment center loft on West 31 Street. It was intended to train a work force for New York's large garment industry, and most early students were first or second generation immigrants. In 1938, the WPA helped build a new campus for the what was then called the Central High School of Needle Trades. The school was completed in 1941. The school's current website explains that "It’s curriculum was almost entirely vocational, stressing sewing, machine work, and fashion design. It had many ties...

The High School of Fashion Industries (formerly the Central High School of Needle Trades) is a New Deal building, which contains a well-known mural by Ernest Fiene. It is commonly believed to be a WPA Arts Project mural, but Gerald Markowitz, co-author of A New Deal for Art (1977), assures us that it is not, even though the spirit of the painting is so typically New Deal.  We have left it on our map because of the common confusion, which this may help allay. "In Manhattan, the fledgling coalition of government, industry, and organized labor created the Central High School of Needle Trades...

Located across the Harlem River from the larger Highbridge Park in Manhattan (also developed by the WPA), this small park located at the east end of the High Bridge, was built by the WPA in 1940. A Parks Department press release from April of that year explains: "It has been developed as a sitting park with numerous benches and landscaped with shade trees. There is also a sand pit in which small children may dig and play. The design was prepared by the Park Department and the work performed by the Works Progress Administration."   (https://kermitproject.org)

NYC Parks describes the WPA's role in developing the Highbridge Pool: "The Highbridge Pool and Recreation Center were built in 1936. The pool was the fifth of eleven city pools built with labor supplied by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). It opened during the hot summer of 1936, leading Fortune magazine to dub 1936 “the swimming pool year.”" In July 1937, Parks announced the further completion of "a new brick building, with copper roof...   be used as a concession stand to serve spectators and bathers at the swimming pool."

In December 1936, the Department of Parks announced the completion of a new playground in Highbridge Park "equipped with wading pool, swings, see-saws, slides and jungle gym for younger children and a large play area with horizontal bars and ladders, basket ball, hand ball, paddle tennis and horseshoe courts for older Children and adults." Although the press release does not mention the WPA or other New Deal agencies, researcher Frank da Cruz explains here that almost all New York City Parks Department projects between 1934 and 1943 were carried out with New Deal funds and/or labor, and that after April 1935,...

Highland Park on the border of Queens and Brooklyn received new playground equipment for small children from the Department of Parks in August 1935. As explained here, all Parks projects at the time were carried out with New Deal labor and/or funding. Given the date of this project, it was most likely supported by the WPA.

The Public Works Administration funded the construction of the Hillside Homes, one of the first subsidized housing projects in the United States. Located in Williamsbridge, the Bronx, the housing complex spans five city blocks. It was designed by architect and urban planner Clarence Stein. The complex was dedicated on June 29, 1935 by Governor Lehman and officials representing of the Federal, State, city, and borough governments. At the time of its opening, the Hillside complex was owned by the Hillside Housing Corporation with with rents controlled by the Federal Housing Authority and the State Housing Board. The facility is still in service...

A New York City Park's Department press release from December 4, 1939 announces the opening of three new WPA playgrounds, including Hines Park: "Hine's Park at Fulton Avenue and East 167 Street is a triangular-shaped area containing a small children's playground, providing a sandpit, see-saws, slides, kindergarten swings and a jungle gym... The opening of these four areas designed by the Park Department and built by the Work Projects Administration makes a total of 306 new or reconstructed playgrounds completed by the Park Department since 1934." (https://kermitproject.org)

The WPA worked during the late 1930s to improve "properties of the U.S. Maritime Commission on Hoffman and Swinburne Island in New York Bay" in New York City. Each island was previously artificially created and was, at the time, being used for the U.S. Merchant Marine as a training station. WPA work on the islands included "reconditioning buildings, grounds, utilities and facilities; excavating; back-filling; draining; painting; improving roads and walks; installing electrical and heating facilities; grading and landscaping grounds; doing carpentry and demolition work ..." Approximately $210,000 was dedicated to these projects as well as work to "the Maritime Ship 'Tusitala' at...

The federal Work Projects Administration undertook a large road repair project starting in 1935 in the borough of Queens. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were repaired; particular emphasis was placed on fixing washout-damaged stretches of road. Holes were filled in and the streets were smoothed, surfaced and reconditioned. Roads improved as part of this project (WPA Official Project No. 65-97-9) included block of 91st Avenue between 188th and 189th St. and 189th St. between 91st Ave. and Jamaica Ave. This project is separate from a large, adjacent, Jamaica Avenue paving project that was undertaken by...

The New York Times reported that WPA laborers had begun work in late 1941 on a playground consisting of "two and one-third acres ... The facilities will include a brick comfort station, concrete wading pool, irrigated sandpit and mothers' sitting area, swings, slides, handball court, pipe-frame exercising unit, and areas for skating, basketball and softball." The completion of the project was announced in June 1942.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook a sizable public building improvement project in Brooklyn, New York beginning in 1935.  The project involved the "Improvement of Public Buildings and Offices" at more than 30 locations, including the old Homicide Court Building at 33-to-35 Snyder Ave. The Homicide Court Building referred to was a 1929 addition to a structure built in 1875 as the Flatbush Town Hall: "When Flatbush and the rest of Brooklyn became part of New York City in 1894, the Town Hall became a police precinct headquarters and the 7th District Magistrate’s Court. In 1929, an addition was built to...

The federal Work Projects Administration undertook a large road repair project starting in 1935 in the borough of Queens. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were repaired; particular emphasis was placed on fixing washout-damaged stretches of road. Holes were filled in and the streets were smoothed, surfaced and reconditioned. Roads improved as part of this project (WPA Official Project No. 65-97-9) included large stretches of Horace Harding Boulevard, which later became part of the Long Island Expressway.

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with Staten Island street repair and maintenance projects along roads throughout the borough. One project involved the widening and paving of what was then known as Serpentine Road, now a part of Howard Avenue, in the Grymes Hill section of Staten Island. Additional work on the 4,000-foot stretch between Clove Road and Howard Avenue (now, about the intersection of Howard Avenue and Signal Hill Road) involved "reducing the curvature" to make bends less dangerous. (This was, after all, Serpentine Road!)

The New York Times reported in 1941 that the WPA was to be involved with several street improvement projects in Brooklyn, including "the widening of Howard Avenue in Brownsville."

From NYC Parks: "Howard Von Dohlen Playground opened on July 15, 1934, and is one of nine playgrounds built by Parks through the War Memorial Fund. The fund was established in 1921 with $250,000 collected by the New York City Police Department. Until 1934, the money had remained untouched, during which time it had grown in value to $350,000. Seeking additional open spaces for children, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses obtained a legal ruling that permitted the Fund to be spent on several playground developments. The properties were intended to honor the memories of individual soldiers who had given their lives in...

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Staten Island project that removed dangerous street ditches from roads throughout the borough. Granite block gutters and headers were installed by WPA laborers along a dozen streets, including from Huguenot Avenue from Amboy Road to the Staten Island Railway tracks and along Amboy Road between Huguenot Avenue and the same railroad.

The North Building at Hunter College was built between 1937 and 1940, using funds from the Public Works Administration (PWA). It lies between 68th  and 69th Streets along Park Avenue.  FDR dedicated the building on October 1940 and in his speech he recounted the story of how Mayor LaGuardia asked for the funding. North Building’s designer was the firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, in consultation with Harrison & Fouilhoux. Wallace Harrison had already designed Radio City Music Hall and the auditorium in Hunter’s building, though much simpler, bears a related design If the façade appears familiar, the main designers also built the Empire State...

"The Hunts Point Branch of the New York Public Library is the thirty-seventh and final Carnegie branch library to be built in New York City and the ninth to be constructed in the Bronx. It has been in continuous operation as a branch library for over eighty years." The library was built in 1929. From 1935-38, the library was expanded by the WPA, "with the construction of a rear two-story addition that accommodated a new activity space and supplementary reading room."   (https://hdc.org)

In October 1935, the New York City Department of Parks announced the opening of twelve new playgrounds, including this one at Hunts Point. Although the release does not specify federal involvement, researcher Frank da Cruz explains here that “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 federal Works Progress Administration undertook a $93,900 project starting in 1935 to modernize and otherwise improve several public (now-former) bath facilities in Brooklyn, NY. The public baths on Huron St. (a few hundred feet west of Manhattan Avenue, on the north side of the road) were constructed in 1903-4; the baths closed in 1960, but the building is still standing. The facilities identified as part of the WPA project were: 209 Wilson Ave. Municipal Baths, Coney Island Duffield Street Hicks Street Pitkin Ave. Huron St. Montrose Ave.

A program of repairs to Hylan Blvd. along a 1.2-mile stretch from Page Avenue to Arthur Kill (Staten Island Sound) was undertaken as a sponsored federal WPA project during the 1930s. The project occurred in the Tottenville neighborhood of Staten Island. Repairs included "resurfacing the existing pavement (44 ft. wide) ... and paving the wings (8 ft. wide each) ...; constructing concrete curb on both sides."

What's now the Dyker Heights Intermediate School was constructed during the mid-1930s as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project.

Construction of New York's Sixth Avenue subway line was enabled by the federal Public Works Administration (PWA) during the 1930s. The PWA supplied a massive loan and grant totaling $23,160,000 for the project, one of the largest New Deal construction undertakings in the country.  The Sixth Avenue was a branch of the original IND Eighth Avenue line, opened in 1932. Four stations opened in southern Manhattan in January 1934; an extension to Brooklyn opened April 1934.  An extension taking the line up Sixth Avenue, with six new stations, opened December 1940.

The Sixth Avenue branch trunk line of New York City's Independent Subway (IND) was constructed during the 1930s with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. On December 15, 1940, six IND subway stations opened along Sixth Avenue. The 14th Street subway station was one of the six to open at this time.

The Sixth Avenue branch trunk line of New York City's Independent Subway (IND) was constructed during the 1930s with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. On December 15, 1940, six IND subway stations opened along Sixth Avenue. The 23rd Street subway station was one of the six to open at this time.

The Sixth Avenue branch trunk line of New York City's Independent Subway (IND) was constructed during the 1930s with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. On December 15, 1940, six IND subway stations opened along Sixth Avenue. The 34th Street–Herald Square subway station was one of the six to open at this time.

The Sixth Avenue branch trunk line of New York City's Independent Subway (IND) was constructed during the 1930s with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. On December 15, 1940, six IND subway stations opened along Sixth Avenue. The 42nd Street–Bryant Park subway station was one of the six to open at this time.