Philadelphia Sites

Constructed with U.S. Treasury Department funds in 1937.

"Philadelphia artist Walter Gardner (1902-1996) painted “The Streets of Philadelphia” in 1937 for the Spring Garden Post Office, one of many across the country built as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.  The painting depicts a bustling street scene with workers unloading goods in front of the Merchant Exchange on Dock Street.  Murals like this one represent an important chapter in American history, when federal policies encouraged the production of art “for the masses” to combat the economic and social challenges wrought by the Great Depression.  Gardner was an English-born painter who emigrated to Philadelphia as a teenager and studied...

This is one of three subway stations along the Broad Street subway line, south of City Hall, whose construction was enabled by federal Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds. As a result of this project the subway was extended from Lombard South Station to Snyder Ave. Service here was inaugurated on Sept. 18, 1938.

Temple University's Sullivan Hall was originally built as the university library (Sullivan Memorial Library) during the Great Depression. Its construction was enabled by the federal Public Works Administration, which provided a $550,000 loan for the project (whose final cost was $555,334). Construction occurred between September 1934 and February 1936. (PWA Docket No. 1326.) "Sullivan Memorial Library (PWA Project 1326) opened in 1936 as Temple's first freestanding Library. It was built with a bequest from Thomas D. Sullivan, a local warehouse owner, and with federal funds from the New Deal Emergency Relief Act. During the Christmas holidays in 1935, books and equipment...

Philadelphia's only covered bridge, which spans Wissahickon Creek in Wissahickon Valley Park, was "rebuilt as part of the Works Progress Administration."

The custom house contains a series of 31 murals painted by George Harding in 1938. They were funded by the Treasury Section's Section of Fine Arts program and depict the "Custom House and Court Activities" and "Various Port Activities in Philadelphia." "The interior was the result of an extraordinary collaboration among Brandywine School artist George Harding, architect Howell Lewis Shay, and Philadelphia Museum of Art director Fiske Kimball (who recommended Harding). Harding's significant mural program consists of a series of 31 separate panels in the vestibule, elevator lobby, and rotunda area. The selection of ornamental motifs, based entirely on nautical...

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) supplied a grant toward the improvement and renovation of Philadelphia's historic Wister House.