New York Sites

The WPA contributed funds for a "handsome new building ... for the purpose of sheltering the valuable equipment of the highway department of Brookhaven Town. ... is believed that the new structure will result in a considerable saving to the taxpayers." The building was to be set on a three-acre tract in Coram. It is still in use at the coordinates specified.

The old Brookhaven Town Hall in Patchogue is located at the northeast corner of South Ocean Ave. & Baker St. According to Sayville's Suffolk County News in 1939, "The WPA has approved the proposed construction of an extension to the Brookhaven Town Hall at a cost of $86,369, of which the government's share will be $39,338." The building was renovated by Northwell Health and now functions as a Medical Building.

Now an industrial park, the Brooklyn Army Terminal at 140 58th Street, which was previously known as the Port of Embarkation, was improved through numerous projects conducted by the federal Work Projects Administration during the 1930s and early 1940s.

"In the rotunda of the are bronze busts of Linnaeus, Darwin, Mendel, Asa Gray, Robert Brown, and John Torrey--the work of WPA sculptors."

The New Deal supported various improvements to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden during the Great Depression, among which was the Herb Garden: "Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor was used to build the 1938 Herb Garden, a Caparn design taken from a 1577 Elizabethan knot garden." The herb garden is no longer extant. Other New Deal-funded efforts, such as bronze busts of noted naturalists that reside in the Laboratory Building rotunda, also grace the Botanic Garden.

The New Deal supported various improvements to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden during the Great Depression, among which was the Osborne Garden. "Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor was used to build the 1938 Herb Garden, a Caparn design taken from a 1577 Elizabethan knot garden. The Italian-style Osborne Garden was also constructed with labor from the Civil Works Administration and the WPA in 1939." Other New Deal-funded efforts, such as bronze busts of noted naturalists that reside in the Laboratory Building rotunda, also grace the Botanic Garden.

According to a Brooklyn Children's Museum history: 1930s "The Work Progress Administration (WPA) brings more than 200 docents, artists, carpenters, printers, and clerks to work at the Museum during the Depression. Over 200 volunteers support museum projects including the construction of exhibits, wooden jigsaw puzzles, and collection boxes. "

Brooklyn College was created in the 1930s with the assistance of the New Deal.  The five original buildings, including a library and gymnasium, were built with PWA funding and the grounds were landscaped by WPA workers. The college's web page tells the story as follows: “Founded in 1930, Brooklyn College was New York City’s first public coeducational liberal arts college. The school was envisioned as a stepping stone for the sons and daughters of immigrants and working-class people toward a better life through a superb — and at the time, free — college education… Despite being in the throes of the Great Depression,...

Boylan Hall is one of the original buildings on the Brooklyn College campus, serving originally as the Administrative and Academic Building.  It was constructed as part of a massive federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken during the Great Depression.

The Heating Plant at Brooklyn College is one of the original buildings on the school's campus, constructed as part of a massive federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken during the Great Depression. Construction was completed c. 1936.

Ingersoll Hall is one of the original buildings on the Brooklyn College campus, constructed as part of a federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken during the Great Depression, 1935 t0 1937.

The buildings of Brooklyn College were financed by a massive federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken during the Great Depression. After the buildings were constructed, Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers worked on improving the campus, primarily through landscaping efforts, beginning in 1938. The above image of WPA workers doing landscaping on the Brooklyn College campus comes from the Brooklyn Public Library. The caption reads: "Planting new shrubs on the grounds of Brooklyn College, between the hockey field and proposed tennis courts, has kept WPA gardeners busy these fall days." The WPA even maintained a plant nursery and a tulip garden on the campus, as the lower image...

The Brooklyn College Library is one of the original buildings on the campus, part of a massive federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken in 1935-37. Construction on the library building began in 1936. The library houses WPA murals by Olindo Mario Ricci.

Brooklyn College Library contains two WPA Federal Arts Project murals entitled "Famous Libraries of the World" painted by Olindo Mario Ricci in 1936-1939. A plaque on the wall near the murals reads: "Gracing the Library's grandest reading room are murals of two of the ancient world's greatest libraries: Egypt's Alexandrian Library and Rome's Augustan Library. Muralist Olindo Maria Ricci wanted students to 'feel as if they are in the company of the greats as they read the classics' and thus included many illustrious figures, including the mathematician Euclid and the poet Virgil.  Ricci began the murals as a WPA artist and completed them...

Roosevelt Hall is one of the five original buildings on the Brooklyn College campus, then serving as the school's gymnasium.  It was built as part of a massive federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project undertaken during the Great Depression, 1935-37. Construction took place ca. 1936. Unfortunately Brooklyn College intends to demolish Roosevelt Hall. "A recent feasibility study determined that Roosevelt Hall and Roosevelt Hall Extension cannot be transformed into the science facilities envisioned by the 1995 Master Plan Amendment. This project will demolish the Roosevelt Hall buildings and construct a 180,000-square-foot science facility with high-tech instructional laboratories, general-purpose classrooms and support spaces."

Under the WPA Federal Arts Project, artist Monty Lewis installed a large double fresco depicting "The Cotton Industry in Contemporary America" in 1936. The fresco may be in the auditorium or in a corridor. At the time of installation, this building was the High School of Industrial Arts. It later became the Sarah J. Hale High School and then, in 2001, the Brooklyn High School of the Arts.

In 1936, "when the United States was still reeling from the Great Depression, a series of murals was commissioned by the Federal Art Project (FAP), to be painted in the community rooms at the Williamsburg Public Housing development in Brooklyn, NY. This development was built in 1936-37, designed by the chief architect William Lescaze. The head of the New York Murals of the FAP division in 1937 was Burgoyne Diller. It was a brave move to commission a series of abstract murals from avant-garde, relatively unknown artists. At the time, most murals (perhaps all) were figurative... The artists whose murals were found in the...

The WPA contributed to several improvements at the Brooklyn Museum during the 1930s. According to the Federal Writers' Project: "During the past few years a WPA project has been making the useum one of the most modern and pleasantly arranged in the country. The most striking change has been the removal of a monumental stairway which originally gave access to the third story, and the building of a new entrance hall at the ground level."

In 1934, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Brooklyn and Queens received their largest allotment of funds to-date, "in the government's drive to spread employment and aid industry." Improvements to drydock 2 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, were part of the Public Works Administration's (PWA) metropolitan-wide program which added "1,079,328 man-months of direct employment," as well as indirect employment, much of it in the construction trades (Brooklyn Daily Eagle). Forty percent of the $250,000,000 that the PWA allocated to the New York metropolitan area went to Brooklyn and Queens. A significant portion of these funds were used to improve and extend the city's transportation system,...

The Light Cruiser USS Brooklyn CL40 was built in the New York Navy Yard (commonly known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard) between 1933 and 1936. It started out as a PWA project, but at the last minute, its funding was redirected toward the construction of another ship at a Massachusetts shipyard. Nevertheless, USS Brooklyn is a member of a new class of cruisers that the PWA funding introduced. Furthermore, since the Brooklyn Navy Yard was heavily staffed by WPA workers, the Brooklyn was likely constructed with New Deal labor. The Brooklyn Navy Yard operated as a Navy facility from 1801 until 1966. It built...

The USS Erie was built in the New York Navy Yard (Brooklyn Navy Yard) between 1934 and 1936. It was funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA). The Brooklyn Navy Yard operated as a Navy facility from 1801 until 1966. It built two warships, USS Brooklyn and USS Erie under the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA). NIRA gave president Franklin D. Roosevelt the authority to build ships and an agency, the PWA, to pay for them.

Formerly known as Public School 142, what is now the Brooklyn New School building received a five-story addition in 1938-9 as a New Deal project. The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a $191,250 grant for the school, whose total construction cost was $339,052. PWA Docket No. NY 1450

A WPA photo of students of the Brooklyn Technical High School says that the school itself was constructed by the PWA. The school's website says that ground was broken on the site in 1930 and the school was ready for partial occupancy in 1933, so most likely construction began before the New Deal but was completed by the PWA.

The school's main lobby features a large oil on canvas WPA mural painted by Maxwell Starr in 1941 . Entitled "History of Mankind in Terms of Mental and Physical Labor," the mural "traces developments from the Stone Age through the 1930s and portrays notable scientists and inventors." The mural was restored in 1998 by the Tech Alumni Association.   (https://www.bths.edu)  

The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, officially known as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, runs under the East River to connect lower Manhattan to Brooklyn. The tunnel was begun in 1940 with PWA and Reconstruction Finance Corporation Funds, though it was not completed until until 1950: "The total cost of the tunnel and the attendant roadways was $105 million. La Guardia knew the city was incapable of financing the project so he dunned the Reconstruction Finance Corporation chief Jesse Jones, a Houston millionaire and Roosevelt confidant, for the funding. La Guardia's hopes of obtaining approval for government assistance were probably based in no small...

In November 1937, the Department of Parks announced the completion of a new playground at Weller Ave. and Brookville Blvd in Brookville Park: "the new playground is equipped with swings, seesaws, slides, jungle gym, sand tables, playhouses, ping pong tables, horizontal bar and ladder, basketball and volley ball courts; also, a circular wading pool surrounded by shade trees and permanent concrete benches. Brookville Park, which occupies a long narrow valley and is entered from the Sunrise Parkway at the north, is being completely constructed as a modern park with modern facilities, of which this playground forms one unit. With the completion...

Then known as Bedford Park, this Brooklyn Park was first established in the 1890s. Since 1899, the Brooklyn Children's Museum has been located on the property. The park was renamed Brower Park in 1923. In 1941, the Department of Parks announced that the WPA had significantly reconstructed the park and area around the museum: "The new development, which reserves 80% of the area for passive enjoyment of broad tree-dotted lawns, also provides a new playground for youngsters where they may safely play on a variety of exercise units. The museum...has been provided with a spacious block paved terrace extending around all sides....

Bryant Park was redesigned and rebuilt between 1933 and 1935 with the help of New Deal funding and Civil Works Administration labor. The project was supervised by the Parks Department, led at the time by Robert Moses. The central role of the New Deal in the reconstruction of the park has received little recognition, with most of the credit going to Moses' Parks Department. Yet, New Deal support was substantial. Moses himself stated for the NewYork Times that " the projects of 1934, with the exception of the parkways, were done almost entirely with relief labor," mentioning the reconstruction of Bryant...

The Works Progress Administration set up an outdoor library in Bryant Park. The "Reading Room" began in 1935 and closed in 1944. Today the park still serves as the site of an outdoor library, opened in 2003.

"This bronze sculpture depicts William Earl Dodge (1805–1883), one of the founders of Phelps, Dodge, a leading mining company. Dodge helped organize the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in the United States and served as the president of the National Temperance Society from 1865 to 1883. John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910) sculpted the piece, which was donated by a committee of Dodge’s friends and acquaintances and dedicated October 22, 1885. Dodge is represented leaning on a podium while delivering a speech. The piece originally stood in Herald Square on a pedestal designed by Richard Morris Hunt (who designed the pedestal for...

The NYC Parks Department website explains that: "Architect Charles A. Platt (1861–1933) designed this elegant black granite ornamental fountain to commemorate social worker and reformer Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843–1905). Shaw, who is said to be the first woman to be honored by a major monument in New York City, was the first female member of the New York State Board of Charities, serving from 1876 to 1889. The Memorial Committee that worked to build the fountain originally wanted it placed in Corlear’s Hook Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, near where Shaw focused her energies. Instead, the fountain, with its 32-foot-wide...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked to clear the land for / develop the then-new Buckhorn Island State Park.

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...

Buffalo, New York's Minucipal Auditorium was a $2.7 million New Deal-funded project. Ground was broken on November 30, 1939 and the auditorium opened October 14, 1940. Sources differ with regard to the source of the New Deal funding -- an AP article claims it was the PWA while others claim the WPA constructed the building. The Municipal Auditorium was demolished in early 2009.

"Buffalo Zoo Entrance Court – funded by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), the entry court and gates (1935-38) are the most intact surviving work of John Edmonston Brent, one of few African Americans practicing as both an architect and a landscape architect in the early twentieth century."

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 federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved Bush Road near the village of Mooers Forks, New York in 1936.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed sewers in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. A 1936 photo shows construction at Bushwick Ave. & Vanderveer St.

The New York Times reported in 1941 that, as part of WPA efforts, Brooklyn would receive six new playgrounds, located at: "Third Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, Second Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, Fort Hamilton Parkway and Fifty-second Street, Albany and Foster Avenues, Park and Nostrand Avenues and Eastern Parkway Extension and Fulton Street." In November 1942, the Department of Parks announced that the WPA had completed the first part of the construction of a new playground at the last site mentioned above. The press release explained that Parks had received the land in 1940, with some restrictions for the nearby subways, and...

Now the site of the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Camp Upton (near Yaphank, New York), was originally "created in 1917 to house and train soldiers for the United States." Camp Upton and its surroundings was the site of New Deal activity throughout the Great Depression. Four CCC camps based at Camp Upton during the summer of 1934 were involved with, among other things, "the clearing of scrub oak, the planting of trees suited to the type of soil ... the building of fire lines and fire breaks and construction of emergency water holes for fire fighting." (2) The CCC...