Washington D.C. Sites

In 1943, the Washington Post reported that the Federal Works Agency (FWA) had constructed the former Patterson Elementary School near Bolling Field in the district's southeast quadrant: "Completed and in use during the past term is the Patterson School, an eight-room elementary, Second and Chesapeake Streets Southeast, to serve the children of workers at the Bellevue Naval establishment in Anacostia." The Patterson School was a temporary building in use from 1943 to 1946 at Chesapeake and Nichols Avenue SW. A  larger replacement building was constructed at South Capitol and Elmira Streets SW and opened in 1946. Thereafter, the original Patterson school...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and its successor, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), both engaged in improvement projects at the old Walter Reed General Hospital (as it was then known).  The entire army medical complex, covering around 80 acres, was closed down in 2011 and Walter Reed Army Medical Center  (as it came to be known) moved out to Bethesda MD.    The former site has been repurposed as the Children's National Hospital and a huge mixed commercial and residential development, The Parks at Walter Reed. CWA crews painted buildings, planted trees, and helped build an elevator shaft at the center...

In 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) completed a paving project at the intersection of 42nd and Warren Streets NW.  The intersection is characterized by a gracious, curving triangle with a small park in the center, likely the result of the WPA's work.  This project was part of a nearly $1 million in WPA road work around the district in 1935-36. The road still exists though the WPA pavement is probably invisible today.

According to the National Archive's index of Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects, WPA crews performed maintenance and repair work on the two giant water conduits of the Washington Aqueduct. The Washington Aqueduct brings water to the city from the Potomac River at Great Falls. It runs under MacArthur Boulevard (formerly known as Conduit Road) and over Cabin John Creek inside the Union Arch Bridge.  Water arrives at the district's Dalecarlia and McMillan Reservoirs, where it is settled and stored, then treated and distributed by the DC Water and Sewer Authority. The aqueduct is operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The exact location...

The Washington Channel is a two-mile long body of water that sits between East Potomac Park and the Southwest Waterfront. There had been a decades-long attempt to improve and modernize the area, but little had been done before the New Deal redeveloped the entire place from 1935 to 1943. Several pieces of New Deal legislation were needed for this massive project, including the River and Harbor Act of 1935 and the War Department Civil Appropriations Act of 1939.  These granted approval and provided initial and supplemental funding for a grand modernization and beautification of the Washington Channel and Southwest Waterfront. This...

The Washington Marina was originally called Yacht Basin No. 1 and was part of a multi-million dollar improvement program for the Washington Channel and Southwest Waterfront, funded by both the Army Corps of Engineers and the District Commission (DC government).  In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared by Executive Order that the nation’s capital needed a first class marina to meet the needs of recreational boaters (FDR was a great yachtsman). Roosevelt commissioned Charles Chaney, the Philadelphia Harbor engineer, to design and supervise the construction of what was then called Yacht Basin One.  The eastern half of the basin was built by the...

The Washington Monument grounds – the core area of the National Mall – was substantially altered and improved, including a major reconfiguration of the streets. The work was paid for by the Public Works Administration (PWA) from a fund of over $1 million provided for an overhaul of the entire National Mall.  Labor was mostly provided by Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) relief workers. First, the Washington Monument grounds were raised and reconditioned with new topsoil, followed by reseeding of the lawns. Second, the circular roadway on the north side of Monument was eliminated and a highway in the line of...

The Washington Monument, one of the most beloved memorials in the country, was completely renovated during the New Deal. No repair work had been done since the monument was finished in 1884 and the exterior had cracked and spalled, resulting in leaching of mortar and leaking through the walls. The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a grant for the work in 1934. Soon, a tubular steel scaffold was erected, which completely covered the shaft of the monument. Workers repointed, repaired and cleaned the entire shaft from top to bottom. The work was completed in February 1935. The cleaning, pointing, and repair...

Many improvements were made to the U.S Navy Yard and Naval Ammunition Depot (now called the Washington Navy Yard) throughout the New Deal, from 1934 to 1941. In 1933, the Washington Post reported that $325,000 had been allotted by the Public Works Administration (PWA) to improvements at the Navy Yard; the funds were dispensed in 1934 for the modernization of the heating plant.  A 1937 Navy report provides specifics on that work: “new concrete foundations, structural steel boiler supports, air-cooled boiler settings, stoker-fired furnaces, smoke breeching, coal chutes, forced-draft fans, operating platforms and walkways, boiler plant accessories, piping and electric wiring;...

Works Progress Administration (WPA) records in the National Archives report that in 1937 WPA labor was used to "erect a brick building in the city to be used as a combination carpentry and blacksmith shop by the Sewer Department." The location was not given, but is very likely to have been at the old Sewer Department site on the Anacostia River in the southeast quadrant of the district.   Next to the still-extant Water and Sewer Authority garage is a group of brick buildings of the same era at the junction of First Street and Potomac Avenue. Any one of these,...

In 1936 Work: A Journal of Progress reported that in 1933-34 the Civil Works Administration (CWA) relief workers constructed 245 feet of seawall at the Sewer Division property yard and a cable shed at the garage. The exact site was not specified. Nevertheless, the Water and Sewer Authority (then known as the Sewer Division) owns a large waterside property at the foot of First Street on the Anacostia River that would be a likely place for such a seawall.  This is further confirmed by a later report in Work: A Journal of Progress that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was soon...

In 1942, the Washington Post reported the allocation of $11,382 to the Federal Works Agency (FWA) for new construction and/or improvements to the Buchanan Recreation Center, adjacent to the Buchanan School in the city's southeast quadrant. The Buchanan school is Watkins Elementary School and extensive play fields, a playground, skating rink and old tennis courts adjoin the school. It is uncertain what remains of the New Deal work today.  

In 1933-34, Civil Works Administration (CWA) relief workers did flood mitigation work on the Watts Branch of the Anacostia River,  “lowering the stream bed in some sections, straightening out bends and clearing away debris to increase the rapidity of the run off of water.” (Work 1936) Several years later, in 1940, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) returned to the site for additional improvements: “The District WPA has resumed work on the storm water flood elimination project at Watts Branch, near Minnesota Avenue and Hunt place northeast…" (Washington Post, May 10, 1940). Not all such channelization of the time was wise.  Work is...

From the General Services Administration Web site: The West Heating Plant is a six-story, near monolithic structure realized in a vestigial Art Deco style. The solidity of the brick exterior is relieved by rhythmic, linear fenestration - the whole depending upon the play of voids against solids for architectural effect. The coal house and ash house, sited in close proximity to the main heating plant building, echoes the plant's architectural composition - both in terms of massing and material. The West Plant was to supply heat to existing and future government buildings in downtown, thereby providing relief to the overburdened Central Heating...

West Potomac Park lies just below the National Mall and encircles the Tidal Basin.  It is the site of many national landmarks, including the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, George Mason Memorial, and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. It is administered by the National Park Service. In the 1930s, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees graded, topsoiled, and seeded a one-and-one-half acre hockey field in West Potomac Park. Although nothing remains of the hockey field, that CCC work established the park as a site of sports and athletics. (HABS Survey report).   In 1936, the Works Progress Administration...

In 1933-34, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) carried out pavement repair and other unspecified improvements to a long segment of West Virginia Avenue NE, from Mount Olivet Road to New York Avenue.   The road was paved with “temporary material consisting of broken-concrete base, broken stone, and slag. These large aggregates are choked with smaller material, and an application of asphaltic cement completes the operation. This construction forms a very good temporary roadway.”   The work is likely still extant, but paved over several times since then.    

In 1938-1939, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed a new Water Main on West Virginia Avenue, north from Mount Olivet Road NE. The Annual Report of the DC government provides details: “A 16-inch main, totaling 780 linear feet, in West Virginia Avenue north from Mount Olivet Road NE. It is proposed to extend this main in the future to Rhode Island and Montana Avenues NE, tying in with the 30-inch trunk main at this location, thereby effecting a major feed through the Trinidad-Woodridge area of the second high service. This main was undertaken as a W. P. A. project." Presumably, the main was later connected...

In 1935-36, Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) carried out repairs to a half-mile segment of Western Avenue, from Wisconsin Avenue to Fessenden Street.   The road was paved with “temporary material consisting of broken-concrete base, broken stone, and slag. These large aggregates are choked with smaller material, and an application of asphaltic cement completes the operation. This construction forms a very good temporary roadway.”   The work is likely still extant, but invisible beneath subsequent repaving.  

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of Whitehaven Parkway NW, from Thirty-fifth Place to Thirty-seventh Street. The WPA graded this road, and also prepared it for pavement by putting in a foundation of recycled road material (e.g., concrete, rock, macadam).

Williston Apartments, consisting of two buildings with about 30 units, was an early project of the Alley Dwelling Authority (ADA). It was completed in 1937, and 265 families applied for apartments, highlighting the need for affordable housing in the nation’s capital. Williston Apartments underwent renovations in 2008-2009, but the exterior appears much as it did in 1937 (see two images below). The number of rentable units remains about the same, “28 units of affordable housing, including 3 units constructed for wheelchair accessibility” (DC Housing Authority). The ADA was one of the earliest New Deal initiatives to provide better housing for low-income Americans....

In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed an additional intake pipe with headwall and appurtenances at the river gauging station at the foot of Wisconsin Avenue along the Potomac. The US Geological Survey has had a recording station at this spot since 1935. The current gauging station appears to be in the spot described in the WPA records.

In 1935-36, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) made improvements to the stretch of Wisconsin Avenue NW, between Massachusetts Avenue and River Road, in the Cathedral Heights and Tenleytown neighborhoods. “The concrete roadway of Wisconsin Avenue NW., from Massachusetts Avenue to River Road, was covered with asphaltic surface as a salvaging project and it is expected that this treatment will prolong the life of the pavement for many years.” This project was of a nearly $1 million WPA  program to upgrade and repave districts streets fiscal year 1936. This WPA roadwork is probably not discernible today due to subsequent road maintenance, repairs and alterations.

In the early years of the New Deal, 1934-1935, Congress funded the construction of the Woodrow Wilson High School through one or more appropriations of around $1 million to the DC Commissioners. At the time, funding and control of the local government in DC was firmly under the control of the federal government. Municipal architects Albert Harris and Nathan Wyeth were in charge of the design, which is a large Federal style, multi-story, brick building around a central courtyard, with a tower above the main entrance and minimal decoration. The firm of McCloskey & Co. was hired to do construction. The project was...

The WPA sewing room project at the Metropolitan Methodist Church in Washington, DC was located at the southwest corner of C Street NW and John Marshall Place (John Marshall Place no longer seems to exist, but most likely ran north to south on the western side of today’s John Marshall Park). Reporting on Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to the sewing room on July 6, 1936, the Evening Star noted that “1,300 women are employed in two shifts on making garments which are later distributed among W.P.A. relief clients.” Between 1935 and 1943, WPA sewing room workers in Washington, DC made over 1,350,000 items...

Yacht Basin No. 2 was part of a large-scale New Deal redevelopment of the Washington Channel and Southwest Waterfront area.  The Diamond Construction Company started building the basin in 1938, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. The basin was completed t in 1941 and leased to the Yacht Club in 1942.  The location of the new Yacht Basin #2 was described as “downstream of the fish wharf, at the foot of Tenth and H Streets SW” (Evening Star, May 26 1938). Further, it was said to have “570 feet of street frontage,” slips for about 100 vessels, and included the area of...

In 1940, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed sewers on Young Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Fairlawn Avenue in the district's southeast quadrant. The precise location is unknown, but these are probably storm sewers installed that connect to the outfall visible just downstream of the Anacostia Recreation Center. This work was part of a massive New Deal era program for Washington of sewer construction, separation of sanitary and storm sewers, and sewage treatment at the new Blue Plains facility in order to clean up the badly polluted Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.