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…
Read MoreIn 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…
Read More…Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning, were also launched thanks to WPA endowments.” For preservationists, however, there is one project of the WPA that still proves particularly useful today. posters…
Read More…the actual New Deal contribution is much greater. To illustrate: the FY 1938-39 WPA Summary Report notes that in New York City in those twelve months alone, the WPA did an almost…
Read More…the Works Progress Administration. Most notably, LaGuardia Airport was fully funded by the WPA. Other prominent examples of this funding are the WPA Swimming Pools found throughout our city, including…
Read More…and the history of the WPA in Greenwich Village, check out our New York School of Artists and Writers Tour, as well as our other blog posts on the WPA. …
Read More…WPA funds to create several indoor markets required to have running water, rail facilities, and loading platforms. Between 1929 and 1941, the city closed over 40 open-air markets, bringing the…
Read More…Since 1874 it has also served as the home of the Women’s Prison Association (WPA), a reform organization seeking to better the lives of women who have been through the…
Read More…policy work. Founded in 1845 by abolitionist and activist Abby Hopper Evans and her father Isaac T. Hopper, the WPA has deep roots in our neighborhoods. Hopper Home, the WPA’s…
Read More…paint murals. She worked on and off for the WPA until 1943 when the agency dissolved. While working for the WPA, Krasner also studied under German artist Hans Hofmann at…
Read More…Office for their architectural and historic significance. Yet they remain threatened. These buildings are designed in a style sometimes called “WPA Moderne” in reference to the Works Project Administration that…
Read More…home of the Women’s Prison Association (WPA), a reform organization seeking to better the lives of women who have been through the criminal justice system. The house is named for…
Read More…its predecessors, with a focus on rehabilitation and WPA-commissioned artworks to uplift its prisoners, it was eventually shut down following ongoing allegations of racial discrimination, abuse, and mistreatment of prisoners….
Read More…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…
Read More…and one of my favorites, the WPA Federal’s Writer’s Project collection. This 1938 photo from the WPA collection shows a blacksmith shop in the South Village at 33 Cornelia Street….
Read More…in 1957 Marie purchased the building. Marie’s Crisis bar with WPA murals. Photo courtesy of KKNY. These days, Marie’s Crisis remains one of the popular destinations for Greenwich Village nightlife….
Read More…for both men and women, and combined modernist and traditional forms in her poetry. 3. Berenice Abbott, 50 Commerce Street Via Wikimedia Abbott’s photography, especially her Depression-era, WPA-funded book Changing New York,…
Read More…while they were personally close, remained until the end of their lives. The only project that Raphael and Moses Soyer worked on together was a series of 1939 WPA Murals…
Read More…a 30,000 square foot, former-WPA building being used as storage for the Sanitation Department just one block east on 1st Avenue. The new home they would inhabit, though, had a…
Read More…As part of the WPA program, the building on East 5th Street was also demolished. In 1953 two alteration permits were filed for the addition of an auditorium wing and…
Read More…weekends surrounding Memorial Day and Labor Day. Between 1935-1942, Pollock worked on the Work Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, part of the larger WPA mission to provide government support to…
Read More…White House, Beulah was selected to complete two murals for the WPA Section of Painting and Sculpture, one for a post office in Indianola, Mississippi and one for a post…
Read More…Borough President. Image via Black Tie Magazine In 1986, TNC purchased an underutilized 30,000-square-foot former WPA building at 155 First Avenue with the help of Bess Myerson, Ruth Messinger, and David Dinkins. The First Avenue Retail…
Read More…Prison, the jailhouse was demolished to make way for the supposedly more humane, Art Deco-style and WPA-mural adorned Women’s House of Detention. Ethel Rosenberg was held in the Women’s House…
Read More…a more suitable building for the organization’s mission. In 2009, Village Preservation gave the WPA a Village Award. To this day, the house is still owned by the Women’s Prison…
Read More…streets and one avenue. In 1939, the WPA Guide to New York City described the scene at both the Gansevoort Farmer’s Market and the West Washington Market: “Gansevoort Market, or…
Read MoreWPA Mural from Greenwich Village’s Women’s House of Detention (demolished 1974) On April 8, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. This act granted the President…
Read More…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…
Read More…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…
Read More…Soyer, “Artists on WPA” 1935. Oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Soyer. Moses Soyer, 1930: Moses Soyer (December 25, 1899 – September 3, 1974) was…
Read More…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…
Read More…is named for its location near East First Street and First Avenue. First Park opened in 1935 and was a typical product of the WPA‘s (Works Progress Administration) initiative to…
Read More…to the building’s east were demolished and in 1931 the Hope Chapel to the building’s west was demolished. As part of the WPA program, the original PS 15 which fronted…
Read More…Alabama. Shahn collected his experiences and photographs from the south and incorporated them into his WPA murals at Rikers Island and in Roosevelt, New Jersey. This experience further expanded Shahn’s…
Read More…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…
Read More…which was particularly well-suited to his works commissioned by the WPA/Federal Art Project. His artwork often featured men hired by the government’s work relief program as subjects, reflecting his interest…
Read More…place to cool down and relax. Astoria Pool, the largest of the eleven WPA pools that opened during the summer of 1936. Source: Museum of the City of New York…
Read More…a critical period in the evolution of the city’s park system — from the social reform movement of the turn of the twentieth century to the WPA era of the…
Read More…acquired by the city in 1799 for street-pattern reasons and was developed into a sitting area in 1938 by the WPA and called St. Mark’s Park. By the 70’s it…
Read More…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…
Read More…focus on rehabilitation, with sewing classes, a library, and rooftop recreation area where inmates could participate in different sports and other athletic activities. The prison also featured WPA commissioned artwork…
Read More…Contemporary Justice and the Child, 1936-1940, tempera on canvas, Department of Justice Building, Washington, D.C. He also did some work for the WPA, including painting a mural for the Department…
Read More…Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) to take photographs of every block and lot throughout the five boroughs. Today, 1940s tax photographs are invaluable resources for researchers and anyone interested in the history…
Read More…and movements like Abstract Expressionism, the Ninth Street Five, and “The Club.” Lucile Blanch at work in her studio at 30 East 14th Street photographed by the WPA Federal Art…
Read More…these were built across the city, all bearing a similar WPA-inspired art deco streamlined look, giving thousands of merchants for the first time a controlled environment within which to sell…
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