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The New Deal is Still Living
…main New Deal agencies, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) shut down in June of 1943, when unemployment was less than two percent. WPA Mural from Greenwich Village’s Women’s House of…
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Making a Place for Play — WPA Era Neighborhood Playgrounds in our Neighborhoods
Children on swings, 1943 Approved as part or the New Deal on April 8th, 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) had a significant impact on our neighborhoods’ social resources and…
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Documenting New York ca. 1940 via ‘Tax Photos’
From 1939 until 1941, the New York City Department of Taxation collaborated with the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) to take photographs of each building in the five boroughs. Known…
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The Social Realist Artist Studios of 240 West 14th Street
…Realist painter who was best known for his Works Progress Administration commissions and later his depictions of the performing arts. Meltsner’s time at 240 West 14th Street is primarily known…
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#SouthOfUnionSquare, the Birthplace of American Modernism: Celebrating Women’s History Month
…was also heavily involved in the Works Progress Administration arts and mural painting program. Her work was exhibited and collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum…
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W.P.A. Anniversary
…the authority to establish programs such as the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration, later renamed the Work Projects Administration) to combat the Great Depression. There are many great examples of the…
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Asian-American History in Greenwich Village and the East Village
…skills as an artist. The outbreak of war in Europe forced her to return to the United States, at which point she began working for the Works Progress Administration’s art…
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Berenice Abbott and the Legacy of the New Deal
…likely you are quite familiar with some of the programs it enacted. The New Deal’s WPA, or Works Progress Administration, was one of those programs. It put millions of the…
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The Artists of the Greenwich Village Historic District
…paintings, often depicting ordinary subjects, were minimalist and naturalist. In 1938, Avery was an artist in the Easel Division of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. A master of…
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The WPA Today
On April 8 1935, the creation of the Works Progress Administration was approved by Congress as a part of FDR’s New Deal. The New Deal was born at the height…
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Chaim Gross on LaGuardia Place, and “The Family” on Bleecker
…well as at the New School. During the Depression, he worked with the Works Progress Administration’s Public Works of Art Project. Through these programs, Gross taught art, and created sculptures…
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The WPA’s Hudson Square Home
In the summer of 1935, the Federal Writers Project and Federal Art Project were founded as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Like other New Deal Programs, these programs…
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Greenwich Village at the White House
…featured in schools, libraries, museums, post offices and other government buildings. PWAP would pave the way for later New Deal art programs including the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project….
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Walker Evans & Ben Shahn: American Art of the Great Depression in Greenwich Village
…also worked together on a commission from the Resettlement Administration, a Works Progress Administration program later known as the Farm Security Administration, to document rural communities throughout the American south….
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#SouthOfUnionSquare, the Birthplace of American Modernism: Mabel Dwight
…Greenwich Village with her family in 1903. Mabel Dwight, Buried Treasure, 1935/42, published by the Works Progress Administration Mabel Dwight, In the Crowd, 1931 However, it wasn’t until 1926 at…
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#SouthOfUnionSquare, the Birthplace of American Modernism: Chaim Gross
…work with the Works Progress Administration. Under this program, he was commissioned to create sculptures for the Apex Building, the art deco Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, D.C. which…
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New Map Shows Most Buildings in NYC ca. 1940
…York. Between 1939 and 1941, the Works Progress Administration collaborated with the New York City Tax Department to collect photographs of most buildings in the five boroughs of New York…
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Anna Sokolow: Dancer, Immigrant, Labor Activist #SouthOfUnionSquare
…labor movement. Anna Sokolow is on this tour due to her involvement in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and her unique approach to dance by incorporating references to the struggles…
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Lee Krasner Paints Gansevoort Street
…Village became a critical part of Krasner’s life and work. Krasner in her studio. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was established to help Americans find jobs…
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Community Cornerstones: The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation
…depression, he worked with the Works Progress Administration’s Public Works of Art Project. A number of Gross’s sculptures are on public display, but perhaps the most familiar to those in…
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Artists Homes of the Greenwich Village Historic District
…building at 50 Commerce Street. Around the time of her move here, Abbott received funding from the Federal Art Project (a division of the Works Progress Administration) for her “Changing…
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Why Isn’t This Landmarked: 4 & 6 East 12th Street
…1950s until his death. Blitzstein is best known for his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles. Cradle was notoriously shut down by the Works Progress Administration….
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11 landmarks of immigration in Greenwich Village
…the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, she was forced to return to the United States where she began working for the Works Progress Administration’s art programs in San…
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Celebrating the Landmarks of Immigration in the Greenwich Village Historic District
…in Europe in 1939, she was forced to return to the United States where she began working for the Works Progress Administration’s art programs in San Francisco. Following the attack…
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Happy Birthday Lee Krasner!
…met came to know, and was influenced by avant-garde artists and critics. Lee Krasner In 1934 the Public Works of Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired Krasner to…
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Charles Snyder’s Historic Schools in the East Village
…fronted East 5th was demolished as part of a Works Progress Administration program; in 1953 an auditorium wing and a wing with more classrooms were added — but the site…
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Beyond the Village and Back: Hamilton Fish Park
…and the Works Progress Administration. In the 1950s and ’60s the park expanded again, absorbing Willett and Sheriff Streets into the park. After the park fell into disrepair following the…
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#SouthOfUnionSquare, the Birthplace of American Modernism: Lucile Blanch
…Music Listener”, oil on canvas, 1949. Lucile Blanch, “High Tension”, 1951-1953. Courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art. Blanch was also heavily involved in the Works Progress Administration arts and mural…
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Touring the Former ‘Book Row’
…A. Simon in 1936-37 for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Prior to this transformation, the corner was populated with several buildings in the heart of Book Row. Harry Gold, who…
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Fiorello LaGuardia — NYC’s ‘Greatest Mayor,’ One of Several from Greenwich Village
…This helped employ 700,000 people on various construction projects and provided the city with much needed infrastructure upgrades. One major result was the eleven Works Progress Administration pools that opened…
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My Favorite Things: Archive Edition II
…protect. For those of you who are keen on the tax photo collection, the Works Progress Administration project designed to photograph every building in New York City between 1939 and…
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Last Splash of Summer
I used to hear from people who said that they hated being in New York City in the summer, and would escape on the weekends to the Hamptons, upstate New…
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New York City’s 1940 Tax Photos — Now Online!
…here for present-day image. Between 1939 and 1941, the New York City Department of Taxation and the federal Works Progress Administration collaborated to put teams of photographers to work taking…
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#SouthOfUnionSquare, the Birthplace of American Modernism: Edward Laning
…of American Art in 1931, Laning found renown through his Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural commissions. This included ones for the Ellis Island dining hall of the Immigrant Station, began…
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Resources for Neighborhood Research
…organized by the Works Progress Administration. The Street View of 1980s New York site organizes NYC’s 1980s color tax photos in an easily accessible map. The NYC Finance Department’s site with photographs…
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A Guide to the Greek Revival, via Our StoryMap
…some of those buildings from the the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), conducted in 1935 as a Works Progress Administration program. Here are some examples. HABS drawing of the entry…
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20 transformative women of Greenwich Village
…outbreak of World War II in Europe, Okubo began working for the Works Progress Administration’s art programs in San Francisco. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order…
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Throwback Thursday, For Fans of Old Photos
…the way east to First Avenue. You can see the lettering of the Art Deco sign of the First Avenue Retail Market, a Works Progress Administration era building that is…
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I Love the 80s…Map!
…1980 tax photos accessible via a map: 80s.NYC. By way of background, between 1939 and 1941, the New York City Department of Taxation and the Federal Works Progress Administration collaborated…
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Cooper Station Post Office
Cooper Station Post Office, 101-111 East 11th Street/93 Fourth Avenue. The two-story Cooper Station Post Office was designed by Louis A. Simon in 1936-37 for the Works Progress Administration in…
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USPS’ Landmark Legacy: the Cooper Station Post Office
…by William Dewey Foster and constructed in 1936-37 as part of the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) to combat the Great Depression. Foster was responsible for designing structures in both New…
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Village Businesses of the 1930s
…of a New Deal Works Progress Administration program for artists. As we noted previously, Abbott in 1929 began to photograph streetscapes with a large format camera. When the Federal Arts…
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Cool off at the Tony Dapolito Center
Summer makes one think of our public pools and recreation centers (whether they’re open or not). The first one that came to mind was the Tony Dapolito Center, which opened…
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Historic Block Slated for Demolition
…Sculptor James Rosati was also listed at this address in 1964 and 1970. Rosati worked as a sculptor for the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930s and later taught…
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Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York
…Great Depression, she began a series of documentary photographs of the city that, with the support of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939, debuted in…
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Three Stops on Christopher Street
…over the small intersection. Berenice Abbott photographed the stop in 1936 as part of her work within the Federal Arts Project of the Works Progress Administration. Two years earlier, Beulah…
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Mine Okubo
…the Works Progress Administration’s art programs in San Francisco. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 called for the imprisonment of thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans…
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Berenice Abbott’s Greenwich Village
…project, Changing New York, financed by the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, and featuring ninety-seven of the roughly three-hundred photographs she took throughout the five boroughs between 1935…
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#SouthOfUnionSquare, the Birthplace of American Modernism: Elizabeth Olds
…Works Progress Administration-Federal Art Project in Omaha, Nebraska around 1935. Through her work with the WPA-FAP, she trained younger artists on silkscreen techniques and successfully elevated the practice of silkscreen…
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Map It! 7th Street Place
…street grid, and once provided access to five five-story tenement buildings that were demolished by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the mid 20th century. The group of buildings occupied…
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