Washington D.C. Sites

The municipal lodging house provided cheap shelter for the indigent and homeless of Washington D.C. It was built in the early 1920s, replacing an earlier lodging house. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) records in the National Archives indicate that in 1936 WPA labor was used to repair a municipal lodging at 310 Third Street, NW.   The lodging house has been demolished, no doubt taken out in the construction of Interstate 395.  It probably stood at the current site of the Frances Perkins (Department of Labor) Building, above the I-395 tunnel.  

The second floor of the north wing of the Ben W. Murch Elementary School was added by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) in 1933-34.  The school is an elegant two-story, federal-style building with a cupola over the central portion and two harmonious wings, north and south. The school was founded in 1930, but the DC school system probably ran out of funds in the Great Depression to finish the full plan, so the CWA was called upon to complete the job. Confirmation of this supposition is needed. Ben Murch School replaced an earlier Grant Road School, dating back to the 1860s.

The United States National Arboretum was established as a public center for scientific research, education, and gardens to conserve and showcase the floral bounty of America and the world.  It was authorized in 1927, but the actual development of the arboretum was accomplished during the 1930s by the New Deal. The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded land acquisition, as well as extensive planning and mapmaking, for the Arboretum. Young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) performed the work under the supervision of the Bureau of Plant Industry (today's Agricultural Research Service) of the Department of Agriculture (USDA)  The Arboretum was established by an...

The National Archives building was substantially completed under the New Deal and the central stacks were added with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). In 1926, Congress approved $8.7 million for a home for the National Archives. The Public Buildings Commission and Commission on Fine Arts had to approve the site and design, which led to much jostling over where it would fit within the larger plans for a "Federal Triangle" in the center of the city.  As a result, the site was moved twice before the architect, John Russell Pope, was officially appointed by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and...

The exterior of the National Archives is graced by sculptures, bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The building above ground was completed under the New Deal by the Treasury Department Office of Procurement, including the sculptures. Congress originally approved a new home for the National Archives in 1928, but construction did not start until late 1931. The foundation was laid and the cornerstone placed by President Herbert Hoover during his last weeks in office. Construction above ground began under President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 and the exterior was completed in late 1935; an addition with more stacks was finished in 1937. The architect of the...

The National Gallery of Art on the mall is one of America's greatest art museums.  It holds thousands of New Deal artworks in its vast collections, much of it available in digital form and occasional shown in exhibits.    By far the largest New Deal collection at the National Gallery is the Federal Art Project's (FAP) Index of American Design, containing over 18,000 artistic renderings (chiefly watercolors) of historic and contemporary American arts and crafts: textiles, furniture, toys, decorative arts, industrial products, and so on. The FAP was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1935 to 1942.  This collection was part of...

The Washington Post, October 11, 1933, reported that the Public Works Administration (PWA) was funding a number of projects around Washington, including $66,945 for housing facilities and equipment at the district National Guard armory.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) – an emergency job-creation arm of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) – reconstructed the bathhouse for two  recreational swimming pools near the Washington Monument in the National Mall during the winter of 1933-34. The work consisted of the following (in the terse format of an annual report of the DC government):  “Graded, fenced, wrecked 45 percent of existing locker-house, remodeled remainder with check-rooms, increased toilet facilities.”  The swimming pools and the bathhouse were soon removed, however, during a complete reconstruction of the Washington Monument grounds, and the area was graded and landscaped. (Daily News 1936).  The...

The New Deal carried out a major renovation of the National Mall, the green centerpiece of Washington DC.  Funding was provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and labor power by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As of 1939, the PWA had expended $1,050,000  on redeveloping the Mall. Work began in 1934 under the direction of the Superintendent of the National Capital Parks, which had become a branch of the National Park Service when the park system was taken over by the Interior Department under Harold Ickes in August 1933.  One element of the reconstruction of the National Mall was to move and...

The New Deal carried out a major renovation of the National Mall, the green centerpiece of Washington DC.   Funding was provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and labor power by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As of 1939, the PWA had expended $1,050,000 on the reconstruction work.  As one newspaper put it, “...the mile long park connecting the Capitol with Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial probably would still be in an early stage of development but for the allocation of PWA funds to finish the project."  Work began in 1934 under the supervision of the Superintendent of the National Capital Parks,...

In 1933, the Washington Post reported the allocation of just over $30,000 to the Public Works Administration (PWA) for repairs to the Navy and Munitions Buildings, which were temporary troop quarters constructed during World War I on the western portion of the National Mall. $27,000 was apportioned for a new roof, $672 for other repairs, and $2,340 for resurfacing a road serving the facility. According to Paul Williams (2004): "Washington had been suffering from a shortage of both office space and housing since World War I, when the giant Main Navy and Munitions Building had been built as one  of the...

The New Deal carried out a major renovation of the National Mall, the green centerpiece of Washington DC.  Funding was provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and labor power by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As of 1939, the PWA had expended $1,050,000 on the reconstruction work.  As one newspaper put it, “...the mile long park connecting the Capitol with Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial probably would still be in an early stage of development but for the allocation of PWA funds to finish the project."  In 1901, the McMillan Commission, composed of eminent architects and landscape architects, was created to rethink...

The New Deal carried out a major renovation of the National Mall, the green centerpiece of Washington DC.  Funding was provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and labor power by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). As of 1939, the PWA had expended $1,050,000 on the reconstruction work. As one newspaper put it, “...the mile long park connecting the Capitol with Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial probably would still be in an early stage of development but for the allocation of PWA funds to finish the project." In 1934, with the aid of funds from the PWA, work began under the supervision of the...

The New Deal carried out a major renovation of the National Mall, the green centerpiece of Washington DC.  Funding was provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA), labor power by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and supervision of the work was the responsibility of the Superintendent of the National Capital Parks, which had become a branch of the National Park Service when the park system was taken over by the Interior Department in 1933.  One element of the National Mall project was the building of tennis courts on the north and south sides of the Mall between 3d and 4th streets.  It...

William Zorach was commissioned by the New Deal’s Treasury Section of Fine Arts to create the statue “Benjamin Franklin.” The statue was made out of marble, and Zorach was paid $8,000 for the job. This artwork was created for the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office Department—today’s Clinton Federal Building—and now resides in the National Postal Museum (and the museum itself served as the main post office—not to be confused with the headquarters building—for Washington, DC from 1914-1986). The Treasury Section of Fine Arts existed from 1934 to 1943. It was initially called the “Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture”; then...

The National Training School for Boys was a federal juvenile detention center for boys under seventeen, located in the Fort Lincoln area of Washington, DC. In 1935-37, Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief labor was used to make various improvements around the school.  The WPA work card on the project has these details:  "Landscape and improve grounds at National Training School for Boys; Enlarge and improve athletic fields at National Training School for Boys; Improve grounds at the National Training School for Boys, including terracing, sloping banks, cutting, filling, and grading, seeding, constructing structures for gully control, and performing appurtenant work; for erosion...

The Works Progress Administration built several agricultural buildings, which included a chicken farm and hennery, at the National Training School for Boys in Washington DC, circa 1937.

The Works Progress Administration improved the Catholic chapel at the National Training School for Boys in the Fort Lincoln area. The work was performed circa 1937, and consisted of landscaping, cleaning, and installing a new roof. The school was closed in 1968 and the fate of the facilities is unknown.  

The Works Progress Administration built a road leading to the annex facilities at the National Training School for Boys in Washington DC, circa 1937.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) renovated several buildings at the National Training School for Girls in Washington DC, located at Conduit (now MacArthur Blvd) and Little Falls Road, NW.  The National Training School was a reform school administered at the time by the DC Board of Public Welfare (and not to be confused with the Nannie Burroughs National Training School for Women and Girls). In 1936-37 the WPA did extensive work at the school, including: "Painting and major repairs; improvements to buildings and grounds... Work includes flooring, painting, erecting a building for a chicken house, barn, implement shed, and quarters; installing equipment, electrical...

The New Deal years 1933 to 1941 were arguably the best years in the history of the National Zoo, thanks to the many projects undertaken by the Roosevelt Administration.  Labor was provided by work-relief programs — the Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), and Works Progress Administration (WPA) — and construction was funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and, later, the Federal Works Agency (FWA). New Deal agencies built or improved virtually every aspect of the zoo.  The PWA paid for a new elephant house and small mammal house and an addition to the bird house.  It funded...

The south wing of the Bird House at National Zoo – which had been left off the original building in 1927-28 – was constructed in 1936 with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). It completed the the imposing, Romanesque style Bird House, adding space for more cages/exhibits and housing the Bird Resource Center. The PWA contributed around $1 million to several zoo improvement projects in the 1930s, including new elephant house, a small mammal house and an addition to the bird house.  The separate cost of the Bird House addition is undetermined.  The original building had been design by Albert Harris and the...

The Elephant House at National Zoo was built in 1936-37 with a grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA). At the time, it was known as the Pachyderm House; it is also sometimes called the Large Mammal House.   The Elephant House was designed in 1935 by Edwin Hill Clark, lead architect for all the New Deal additions to the National Zoo, as well as the Philadelphia zoo in 1930s.  The work was supervised by the Treasury Department Procurement Division's architectural office.  The actual construction was undertaken by private contractors, Harwood-Nebel Construction and Huffman and Brown. The Elephant House includes both indoor enclosures and rustic...

Elizabeth Fulda was commissioned to make glass mosaics – 9 by 6 foot panels – to be placed over two entrance doors to the new addition to the Bird House done in 1936.  Those were never done.  Instead, her designs were used to create colored concrete panels carved by Dominico Mortellito. Mortellito's  initials are carved in the panels, but the design is Fulda's, as can be seen from her drawings submitted to the Fine Arts Commission. One panel depicts dodos and the other moas.  The panels still exist on the rear of the building – though the doors have been bricked up...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved Harvard St. around the entrance to the National Zoo in 1935-36.

Charles R. Knight produced a frieze of Pre-Historic Animals inside the Large Mammal House at the National Zoo in 1937. They were cast in aluminum by the Manhattan Terrazzo Brass Strip Company. On the floor are roundels by Knight in marble and aluminum depicting various large mammals. Those were also carried out by the Manhattan Terrazzo Brass Strip Company. These artworks were commissioned and paid for by the Treasury Relief Art Project, which aimed to put unemployed artists back to work.    

The Machine and Carpenter Shops building was constructed at the National Zoo in 1936-37, with a grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA). The PWA paid for four buildings and other improvements to the zoo in the 1930s. In 1938, the National Zoo reported that “fiscal year 1937 was probably the most outstanding in the history of the Zoo.  The construction under the Public Works Administration grant of $892,920 was completed. These improvements include… machine and carpenter shops...”  The separate cost of the Machine & Carpenter Shops building is not specified in the reports. The Zoo report described the new utility building as...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the building for a restaurant at National Zoo, constructed in 1939-40.  The restaurant building still serves the public today as the Mane Cafe. In its 1939 fiscal year report, the National Zoo noted: “The Public Works Administration allotted the sum of $90,000 for the much-needed restaurant building at the Park. Work on plans for this building was commenced immediately by the Supervising Architect, Procurement Division, Treasury Department, and in a short time it is expected that bids will be let and construction begun. This will be a marked improvement in the service that the Zoo gives...

Two one-foot square cast-aluminum plates, depicting the  "Pied Piper of Hamelin," were produced by Domenico Mortellito in 1936 and installed in the Small Mammal House at the National Zoo. These pieces were commissioned and paid for by the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP), which gave work to unemployed artists in the Depression.

In 1937, Domenico Mortellito painted habitat background murals for the Bird House and the Pachyderm (Elephant) House and added murals to the zoo restaurant.  These murals were commissioned by the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP), which aimed to put unemployed artists back to work.   Mortellito used a rubber-based paint for the animal house murals and carved linoleum for the restaurant.   It appears that all have been lost over the years, though two murals at the Bird House are said to survive (this  needs to be verified). Mortellito is shown in the photos below painting the background murals in the Elephant House, including...

From 1933 to 1941, New Deal relief workers added a number of new animal exhibit areas to the National Zoo, as well as improving existing enclosures.  The following are sketches of the significant work performed at a dozen areas, taken from the Zoo’s annual reports, with the relevant relief agency and years in parentheses.  Many of these exhibit improvements appear to still exist today, as shown in the photographs below.  Further verification is needed, but much of the stone and concrete work is typical of the New Deal era. Antelope and wild sheep exhibit “Replacing old and unsatisfactory frame structure by a series...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded a Small Mammal House at the National Zoo, constructed in 1937.  It was one of several buildings paid for by the PWA and many other improvements made at the zoo by New Deal relief agencies. It is a brick building done in Italian Renaissance style, with a triple-arch entry, one semicircular end, limestone trim and tile roofing.  It includes a ventilation system. The designed was done in 1935 by Edwin Hill Clark, lead architect for all the New Deal additions to the National Zoo, as well as the Philadelphia zoo, in 1930s.  The work was supervised...

Erwin Springweiler designed the sculptures of elephants and mammoths above the interior doors in the Elephant House at National Zoo. The actual carving was done by Lombard & Ludwig, architectural sculptors, during construction of the Elephant House in 1936-37. These works were paid for by the Treasury Relief Arts Project (TRAP).    

Erwin Springweiler’s bronze statue, “Great Anteater,” was mounted at the National Zoo in 1938.  It stands in front of the Small Mammal House. Springweiler was able to work from a live anteater at the zoo and from skeletons and furs at the American Museum of Natural History.  The statue is six feet long and three feet high. It was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. The anteater statue was unveiled at the zoo on March 25, 1938, with a formal presentation to Dr. William M. Mann, director of the Zoo, and a speech by T. Edward Rowan, superintendent of painting and sculpture...

Heinz Warneke created a red granite sculpture for the National Zoo, entitled "Tumbling Bears," in 1938.  It sits at the bottom of a hill near the Large Cat area.  A plaque on the sculpture calls it Tumbling Bears, but it is also known as the "Wrestling Bear Cubs" and "Wrestling Bears." Though the date at the base of the sculpture reads "1935," it seems that this work was not finished until 1938.  The Evening Star (1938) reported that the Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture submitted to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts "a sculptural group by Heinz Warneke of East Haddam,...

Works Progress Administration (WPA) project cards for 1938 at the National Archives indicate that the WPA was charged with making improvements to the grounds, buildings, and distribution systems at the U.S. Naval Observatory.  Photograph cards on file at the archives show a storage shed overhauled by the WPA and that WPA workers also led tours of the observatory at the time. The Navy's Bulletin #38 notes that, "At the Naval Observatory only limited funds have been available and they have been expended for repairs to buildings including the modernization of dangerous electric wiring. The available funds have also been used for the...

The Naval Research Laboratory has been a major research facility for the US Navy and military since it was founded at the instigation of Thomas Edison in 1923. It is located along the Potomac River at the southern tip of the District of Columbia. In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) carried out repairs and made additions to the US Naval Research Laboratory.  Principle among these was a large addition to the field house.  The WPA teams also added roads, sewers and storm drains, and landscaping. Navy Bulletin No. 38 provides more specifics: “At the Naval Research Laboratory, Bellevue, D. C., the major...

The Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial, located in Lady Bird Johnson Park on Columbia Island, is a statue honoring sailors of the United States Navy and the United States Merchant Marine who died at sea during World War I. It was designed in 1922 by Harvey Wiley Corbett and sculpted by Ernesto Begni del Piatta. The monument was not erected until 1934, when it was installed with New Deal support as part of a larger Capital Parks improvement program. It is likely that the first installation was done with the help of Civil Works Administration (CWA) relief labor. Nevertheless, lack of funds meant that...

In 1933, the Washington Post announced the approval of several road surfacing projects funded by the federal PWA: "Among projects approved here are paving of Sixteenth street, Constitution Avenue, Michigan Avenue, Columbia Road, Foxhall Road, Good Hope Road, New Hampshire Avenue, Benning Road and Conduit Road, widening of E Street back of the White House and widening of Thirteenth Street" (October 9, 1933). It is uncertain which portion of New Hampshire Avenue was paved.  The labor was most likely provided by relief workers in the Civil Works Administration (CWA) or Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA).

The Public Works Administration completed improvements at the New Jersey Avenue Sewage Pumping Station between 1939 and 1940. The work consisted of “electrical installation."