New York Sites

Delaware Academy, in Delhi, New York was constructed with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building bears a 1939 cornerstone and Federal Works Agency: Public Works Administration plaque.

This photo shows a "twin arch bridge" on Delaware Ave. under construction by the WPA in 1936. Google maps shows that the bridge is still standing.

The major thoroughfare of Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, New York was improved substantially ca. 1936 by federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor. More than 400 men were put to work as part of this effort.

Living New Deal believes that the former school building—now Delaware Regional Center—at 15598 State Highway 8 in Masonville, New York was constructed with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building exhibits a 1941 cornerstone.

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 1937, the Works Progress Administration built a "low art moderne warehouse for the New York City Department of Purchase, directly under the Brooklyn Bridge and opposite Pete’s Downtown. Approved by the New York City Art Commission, it was designed by Michael J. Mongiello as a long, sleek piece of streamlining with strip windows and orange brick. The roof was specially designed to resist damage from debris falling from the bridge." The building took 18 months to construct, with $635,000 in Federal funds. The Warehouse was built in the Fulton Ferry district at the Brooklyn Bridge. The 1939 W.P.A. Guide to New York City,...

The federal Work Projects Administration worked to improve Peekskill, New York's Depew Park and Fort Hill Park during the 1930s. One project (involving either/both parks) was described by the WPA in its project rolls: "Work includes constructing comfort station, shelter building, and fireplace; performing masonry, carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work; installing water pipe, drinking fountains, and edging around running track; painting and roofing; removing stone wall." WPA Official Project No.: 665-21-2-540.

Formerly known as Liberty Park, this site was acquired by the City in late 1936. In July 1937, Parks announced that "the new playground...is the first section of a large recreational area which is being constructed to be completed. It is for small children and has slides, swings, see-saws, sand tables, play houses and a rectangular wading pool which can be used for volleyball when not in use as a pool. Benches and shade trees are also provided. When the entire area is completed, it will have facilities for baseball, football, tennis, roller-skating, basketball, horseshoe pitching and paddle tennis, as...

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...

The third-floor hallway at DeWitt Clinton High School contains two huge New Deal murals by Alfred Floegel, The History of the World (walls) and Constellations (ceiling). The oil on canvas murals were painted in 1934-1940. The History of the World is 5 feet 4 inches high and 194 feet long. Floegel worked on the Clinton High School murals from 1934 to 1940. In the wall mural, different eras of world history are represented in sequence, starting at the rear, proceeding up the right wall, then crossing over and proceeding down the left wall. The ceiling is uniformly done in blue and gold,...

On October 1937, Parks announced the opening of a new playground in what later became known as Dome Playground: "At Dahill Road and 38th Street, also in Brooklyn, the new playground, the wading pool section of which was opened some time ago, has facilities for handball, basketball, volley ball, soft ball games, a roller skating track, horizontal ladders and bars and a generously equipped small children's playground with slides, swings, see-saws, playhouse and sand tables. Shade trees and permanent concrete benches are also included in the design. This area is another one of the twenty-four sites selected by the Commissioner of...

The federal Public Works Administration provided a grant toward the construction of the Domestic Relations Court Building located at the northeast corner of Lexington Ave. and 22nd St. Built in 1939-1940, the building now houses Baruch College's Administrative Center and features a striking set of exterior reliefs above the first floor. The facility has also been referred to the "Second Children’s Court". GothamCenter: "The Children’s Court’s new home, built in 1912, was the first of two courthouses to be located on East 22nd Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue South, a quiet residential block near Gramercy Park.  The second “Gramercy Park courthouse” was...

"One of several small monuments in the vicinity of what is known as the “Battle Pass” in Prospect Park, the Dongan Oak Monument commemorates events which took place in this area during the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776. During this significant battle of the Revolutionary War, a large white oak mentioned in 1685 in the patent of Governor Thomas Dongan (1634–1715), was cut down by Colonial soldiers and thrown across the road to impede the advance of the British army."   (www.nycgovparks.org) In the 1930s, the sculpture was restored with federal funding under Karl Gruppe, "chief sculptor of the...

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed more than 1,000 feet of sewer line along Dorsey Street in Watertown, New York.

"The grounds have been used for baseball since 1920, on what was Elihu Phinney's farm. A wooden grandstand was built in 1924, later replaced by a steel and concrete grandstand built in 1939 by the Works Project Administration."

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 water pumping station at "Pt. of Douglass St.", believed by Living New Deal to be located at the end of Douglass St. at the Gowanus Canal. A municipal site presently located at this spot is called 'Gowanus Facilities.'

The Downing Street Playground was built circa 1935 with the help of the New Deal. The agency involved in funding or completing the work is unknown to the Living New Deal. During his tenure as Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses used New Deal funding and labor to build public park facilities, yet rarely credited the New Deal agencies that supported the projects. Because he prohibited the placement of New Deal plaques and corner stones, we have few sources that tie public parks in New York to New Deal agencies. However, several of Moses’ statements reveal that during the 1930s most of...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook an extensive project in Middletown, New York to enclose sections of Draper Brook with concrete culverts.

Now a part of the much larger Calvert Vaux Park (also still referred to as Dreier-Offerman Park), this smaller playground at Cropsey Ave. and Bay 46th St. was constructed by the Department of Parks in 1934. Mayor La Guardia attended the opening ceremony in November 1934. The press release announcing the opening described the new playground as having "a wading pool and a two-story brick field house. The sand tables, seesaws, slides and swings for small children are located on the Bay side of the building.  Apparatus for older children is located in the space adjoining Cropsey Avenue." This playground...

This playground on the edge of Forest Park in Queens is named after Glendale's original name: Dry Harbor. The NYC Parks site explains that it was "constructed in 1934 with swings, see-saws, a wavy slide, a flagpole, and a schoolyard gymnasium." A June 1936 press release also announced the completion of the reconstruction of an area in this playground to contain "a wading pool, complete equipment for small children and a play area with a soft ball diamond and horseshoe pitching court for boys," and in December 1936 Parks announced the completion of the second half of the remodeled playground...

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) put men to work beginning in 1935 on an improvement project at the city-owned Dubois Avenue Yard. A $125,473 project involved the construction of two extensions to garage buildings at the then-Highway Department facility: one 100' x 50' and the other 63' x 50'. A $84,000 project entailed "building repair and alterations" at the facility. The site (albeit with newer construction) is still in use by New York City's Department of Transportation.

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 42 Duffield Street were constructed in 1905; the building has since been demolished. 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.

Dunbar Playground is named after African American poet Paul Dunbar. It was opened by the New York Department of Parks on September 23, 1935. The department press release stated that the playground would be "equipped with a wading pool, shuffle board court, handball courts, swings, slides, seesaws, etc." (kermitproject.org). 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 construction of Dunn Field during the Great Depression was enabled by a federal Public Works Administration (PWA) grant. Construction occurred between 1938 and 1939. The ballpark is still in use today. (PWA Docket No. 1619)

The historic Dutch Gardens in New City, New York, part of Courthouse Park, were constructed between 1935 and 1938 with federal Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) labor. This was significant as the only W.P.A. outdoor construction project to be designed and supervised by a woman, Mary Mowbray-Clarke.

The Dyker Beach Golf Course first opened in 1897. It was redesigned by Jon Van Kleek in 1935-1936. On May 7, 1936, the Department of Parks announced that the Dyker Beach Golf Course had been “thoroughly reconstructed with new tees and greens throughout…with relief funds provided by the C.W.A., T.E.R.A. and W.P.A.” The renovation project was part of a larger city wide renovation of public golf courses that was funded by New Deal programs. David Owen, staff writer at The New Yorker, remarks that "Dyker is where Tiger Woods’s father, Earl, learned to play golf, in the early nineteen-seventies. (He was...

Dyker Beach Park, located just south of the Dyker Beach Golf Course and north of the Belt Parkway was assembled in eight stages between 1895 and 1934. In 1942, the WPA and the Department of Parks completed extensive work on the park, much of which is still visible today. A press release announcing the completion of a field house and playground described the finished and ongoing work: "The field house, a one story brick structure, approximately 44' x 100' is located at the east end of the athletic field in a paved plaza designed as a focal point for the park...

What is now-Earl L. Vandermeulen High School was improved by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1935 and 1936. According to the Suffolk County News, these improvements included "concrete walks, pavement, and drains on grounds of Port Jefferson High School and athletic field."

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 1.2-mile stretch of East 222nd Street between Carpenter Ave. and Boston Rd.

The federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) undertook several road improvement projects along roads in Brooklyn, New York. One such project involved the removal of malls and other repair work along the modest stretch of East 93rd Street from Lenox Rd. to Kings Highway.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) paved East Fifth Street in Oswego, New York in the vicinity of East Utica St. in 1938.

The WPA approved funds for the construction of a municipal airport in East Hampton, NY in 1936. Work on the airport began Oct. 1936 and was completed by mid-1937. The project, as reported by Sayville's Suffolk County News, "will employ more than a hundred men seven months." Three runways were built as part of the project. The airport is still in use today.

Then constructed as the East Harlem Health and Teaching Center, what is now known as the East Harlem District Health Center was built with federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The PWA supplied a $239,000 loan and $343,700 grant for the project, whose total cost was $1,253,244. Construction occurred between November 1935 and December 1937. PWA Docket No. NY 9049. A March 1935 Parks Department press release discussing the construction of the health center also describes plans to build a playground on the building's roof that would "spare nothing in the way of ingenuity in developing this area into the city's most...

The National Archives photo caption for this picture of sewer tunnel work,  records the project as a "...tunnel for sanitary sewer - 42 feet under East Lincoln Ave," in Mount Vernon City, Westchester County, New York.

The federal Work Projects Administration worked to improve the former East Main Street School in Amsterdam, New York during the 1930s. WPA work included the modest contributions of "painting walls, ceilings, windows, doors, and cornice" as well as varnishing. The building has since been repurposed as a church.

The federal Work Projects Administration put many men to work starting in 1935 with street repair and maintenance projects that improved roads throughout the Bronx. An approximately half-mile stretch of what was then Eastern Boulevard (now the Bruckner Expressway) between Middletown Rd. and Westchester Ave. was resurfaced with bituminous concrete as part of one $94,564 WPA project.

The historic former Eaton Grade School building in Eaton, New York was, Living New Deal believes, originally one of two similarly designed school buildings built in the Town of Eaton as part of a New Deal project. The PWA provided a $185,625 grant for a project that included the Morrisville Central School. Construction on both schools began in 1936. The school building is now privately owned and fenced off. PWA Docket No. NY 1118-A.

The Edward Gould recreation center in Dobbs Ferry, New York received a  New Deal mural, commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), in 1934. The location and status of this work is unknown to Living New Deal.

Originally the Morrisville Central School, what is now known as Edward R. Andrews Elementary School was constructed during the 1930s with federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building was designed by Carl W. Clark of Cortland, NY; Kraft & Detor of Syracuse were the general contractors. The PWA provided a $185,625 grant for the project, whose total cost was $414,833. Construction occurred between 1936 and 1937. PWA Docket No. NY 1118-A.

Eighth Lake is one of the Fulton chain of lakes in the southwestern portion of the Adirondack Park in  upstate New York.  State route 28 passes along the lakes as it crosses the park.  The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp between 7th and 8th Lakes in 1933 – named Eighth Lake camp (S-58), and started on forest clearance and navigation improvement projects between the lakes. The CCC 'boys' also started work on the 8th Lake Campground (which abuts 7th Lake, in fact) in 1933; but they had to leave for less harsh climes as winter set in. The next...