Ridgewood Sites

Today's NYC Parks website explains: "The City of New York acquired the property for this park in January 1941. At that time, the park was divided by 60th Street, which cut through the property. The City then assigned Evergreen Park to the Board of Education and Parks in the spring of 1942. In order to expand the parkland and unify the two sections, the City closed 60th Street and gave the area to Parks. Part of the park is jointly operated with the adjacent P.S. 68. The playground opened officially on January 11, 1943." A 1943 press release announcing the park's...

The land for Grover Cleveland Park was first established in the 1920s. It acquired its present name in 1939. In June 1940, the Department of Parks announced the completion of the WPA's reconstruction of the park: "This five-acre park has been redesigned and reconstructed to provide a wider all year round usage. Approximately three-quarters of the area is set aside for active recreation. There is now a completely equipped separate small pre-school children's playground, a wading pool which can be used for basketball, and three paddle tennis courts, a volleyball court, and three shuffleboard courts for older children. For adults, there is...

A set of alterations to the branch library in Ridgewood, New York was undertaken as a sponsored federal WPA project during the 1930s.

The federal Works Progress Administration worked to conduct repairs and alterations to several civic buildings in Queens as part of a $300,464 project begun in 1935. Buildings improved included what was then the Queens County Magistrate's Courthouse building in Ridgewood, NY. "The Ridgewood YMCA building was constructed in 1931 and served as the Queens County Magistrate's Courthouse. At the time, the brick and limestone-trimmed building was the first courthouse erected in Queens since 1898. The courthouse shuttered its doors in 1962 and the YMCA of Greater New York purchased the building from the city in 1965 for $50,000." (YMCA)

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 the stretch of 64th Road between Dry Harbor Rd. and 82nd Pl.