New York City Parks Department New Deal Projects 1934-43

Frank da Cruz
July 2014
Most recent update: 14 December 2019

See Parks press release archives

This is an attempt to list New Deal projects in New York City relying only on press releases issued by the New York City Parks Department, 1934-1943. These releases often credit the PWA, CWA, WPA, or other New Deal agency for funding, design, or labor, in which case the inclusion of the project in the table below is unquestionable. In other cases, however, the role of New Deal agencies is unstated and must be inferred. My method for this is explained after the table. The table might seem long (it has just over 500 entries) but bear in mind it contains only what the Parks Department decided to write a press release for. To get an idea the true scope of New Deal activity in New York City, CLICK HERE to read a summary for just one agency (the WPA) for one single fiscal year. Also note that many important New Deal projects in NYC do not appear in this table because they weren't Park Department projects; examples include the Triborough and Bronx-Whitestone bridges, the Lincoln and Brooklyn-Battery and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, LaGuardia Airport, numerous municipal buildings (courthouses, post offices, schools, jails), hospitals, clinics, college campuses, the WNYC radio station (etc etc), plus vast amounts of infrustructure work, not to mention murals, concerts, performances, surveys, maps, and on and on. Others don't appear because even though they were Parks Department projects, they don't have press releases; for example the renovation of the Central Park Arsenal and the painting of its murals, the Mother Goose statue, the reconstruction of the Central Park (and other) bridle paths, Van Cortlandt Stadium, the Merchant Marine Academy, and so on.

The Reference column shows the date of a NYC Parks Department press release that announced the the project; this is not necessarily the same as the date when the project was completed. The dates key into local cleaned-up versions of the Parks Department press release archives found at www.nycgovparks.org/news/reports/archive (see below the table for details).

The final press release in the table ends by saying, "In 1934 there were 119 playgrounds in the five boroughs, 67 of which have been reconstructed. There will be, with this new addition, 489 playgrounds in the park system." In other words, 370 new playgrounds were built in New York City under the New Deal.

Other New Deal Projects in New York City

Besides the Parks Department. (This section will be exapanded as I find more information.) These are from the book ”Public Buildings, A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration" by C.W. Short and R. Stanley Brown of the Public Works Administration, Authorized by John M. Carmody, Administrator, Federal Works Agency, and E.W. Clark, Acting Commissioner, Public Works Administration, United States Govenment Printing Office, Washington (1939). These are some New York City projects that were accomplished with PWA funding, that were highlighted in the book for their architectural significance:

• Brooklyn Courthouse
• Queens Courthouse, Jamaica
• Franklin K. Lane High School, Brooklyn (1938-present).
• Brooklyn College
• Jewish Memorial Hospital, 196th Street and Broadway, Manhattan (1936-1983).
• Nurses Home, Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island).
• Nurses Home, Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn.
• Williamsburg Houses, Brooklyn.
• Bronx County Jail, Bronx (1937-2000)
• Sewage Treatment Plant, Wards Island (1937-present).
• Garbage Incinerator, 56th Street and 12th Avenue, Manhattan.
• Power Plant, Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) (1937-????).
• Triborough Bridge, Queens-Manhattan-Bronx (1936-present).
• Lincoln Tunnel, Manhattan-Union NJ (1937-present).
• Madison Square Postal Station, Manhattan (1937-present).
• Immigration Station Ferryhouse, Ellis Island (1936-present).
• Three Staten Island Ferryboats.

Other significant projects not listed in the book include the Bronx County Courthouse, Manhattan's First Houses (New York City's first public housing project, 1935), the huge ocean-liner piers on Manhattan's West side, and on and on. Expanding this list to include all the New Deal in New York City is a neverending task (see this page).

In his book Long Range Public Investment (University of South Carolina, 2007), Robert D. Leighninger Jr., says:

More than any other New Deal Agency ... the Public Works Administration has left dramatic reminders of this age of public building. For example, New York City benefitted from 107 PWA projects, beginning with vital parts of its transportation system: the Triborough Bridge, the Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, the East River Drive, the Henry Hudson Parkway, major sections of the Eighth Avenue (Independent) subway line, and three Staten Island Ferries ... Additions to dock and pier facilities totaled $5.6 million, and another $1.5 million was spent on barges. Four garbage-disposal projects improved the city's health and cleanliness at a cost of $34.6 million. The garbage incinerator at 56th Street and Twelfth Avenue and the attached garage that houses 350 garbage trucks is still vital to keeping the city clean ... Thirty-three projects added $25.4 million worth of school buildings to New York City's educational system. Three separate college or university projects spent $12.4 million on higher education. PWA established Brooklyn College with a library, academic building, science building, gym, and heating plant costing $6 million. Three courthouse projects cost $22.3 million. The Bronx County Jail was a PWA project. Central Park, where PWA built the original Central Park Zoo, the Conservatory Gardens, and most of the playgrounds, is only the most famous of the scores of parks, many with swimming pools, built across the city ... On Staten Island, a large merchant marine hospital complex is now serving as a private hospital, Bayley Seaton. The seven eight-story buildings that form the core of Belleview Hospital and the twelve-story Nurses Home at Kings County Hospital are also PWA projects. There were twenty-four different hospital and clinic projects adding $22.7 million in health facilities to the city.

New Deal Assistance in NYC Parks Department Projects, 1934-43

New York City Parks Department press releases are inconsistent as to giving credit to New Deal agencies for the projects they announce. When Robert Moses was getting along with the local PWA, CWA, WPA or other administrator, he was generous with credit. When he was having bureaucratic problems with these agencies, or simply did not get everything he wanted from them, he tended to avoid mentioning them when announcing new public facilities. Although he was never reluctant to accept New Deal financing or labor, he also held it in lower esteem than private enterprise and therefore sometimes played down its role. For example, he forbade the placement of New Deal signs (e.g. "USA Work Program WPA") on construction projects[12,p.48;14]. He also disallowed plaques, cornerstones, and logos on New Deal constructions in New York City (no citation needed because although such plaques and cornerstones are commonplace all over the USA, not a single one is in evidence on any New York project controlled by Moses as far as I know). This is a major reason why today so few people are aware of the trememdous impact New Deal projects had on the New York City landscape.

Nevertheless, I believe it is safe to say that every single project completed by the NYC Park Department during the 1930s was federally funded to some degree. In the words of Robert Moses (in a signed press release of October 29, 1934), referring to his staff of designers and engineers:

Of the original 547 men who were employed on January 27th [of 1934], 374 are still employed on Park Department projects; of the 453 men who were obtained through the Engineers Society rolls, 369 are still working on park design. ... They were employed on Federal C.W.A. projects, and paid entirely from Federal funds. ... It should be made clear that in addition to the 601 superintendents, architects, engineers and landscape architects employed by the Park Department with no consideration of their need for relief, there are 1,683 other technical and supervisory employees who were furnished by the Home Relief Bureau of the Department of Public Welfare.

This is in addition some 80,000 federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) laborers[1] initally at his disposal ("Under the whip hand of Moses and his 'Ramrods' [CWA workers], had restored every park in New York City"[2]). In other words, the great bulk of the Parks Department staff was paid by the federal government through New Deal programs. Remember: this was the Great Depression. Without this federal funding, none of these people would have had jobs and none of these projects would have been built. Three years later, Moses wrote[13]:

The CWA, TERA and WPA put large sums into our park system in the first 3½ years of the current administration [i.e. Moses' tenure as Park Commissioner up to the time this article was written]. At one time we built up largely with relief funds, probably the largest engineering design staff in the United States. Most of these relief designers were exempt from ordinary relief requirements, and for a considerable period. The staff included some of the finest engineers, architects and landscape architects in the country who happened to be unemployed and were ready to serve at low pay. While relief work is a long way from 100 percent efficiency, and it is therefore necessary to discount the actual value derived from the relief contributions, even this reduction leaves a tremendous amount of permanent work which can be called one of the silver linings of the depression.

To further confirm the point, the New York City Parks Department press release of March 3, 1934 states that, “The new Central Park picture-book Zoo is under construction, work has started and will be completed by early summer. The work of design has been done by C.W.A. architects, landscape men and engineers in the employ of the Park Department.” Since Aymur Embury was the chief architect of the Zoo, this confirms he was on the federal payroll.

Therefore some projects for which it is difficult to find any New Deal funding or labor can still be classified as New Deal projects when they were designed by Parks Department architects and engineers, such as Embury. Two examples are the Henry Hudson Bridge and the Little Hell Gate Bridge, where Embury is credited as architect. Embury also designed the Prospect Park Zoo, five of the 11 WPA swimming pools of 1936, the Triborough Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Whitestone Bridge, Orchard Beach, and about 600 other projects.

CWA ended March 31, 1934, but funding remained available from other federal agencies such as the Public Works Admistration (PWA), the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), and others, until the the Works Progress (aka Work Projects) Administration (WPA) was formed in April 1935 and quickly became the main source of relief funds and labor for the NYC Parks Department. A telegram from Robert Moses to WPA Administrator Hugh S. Johnson dated September 11, 1935, acknowledges the receipt of 11,000 laborers and 28 foremen, requesting over 600 additional foreman and supervisors. In a followup commentary Moses mentions that federal park workers are costing the taxpayers 84 million dollars. Later he received all the WPA foremen and supervisors he requested; by mid-September 1935, some 36,000 WPA workers were laboring in city parks[3].

In his August 24, 1937, memorandum accompanying the Parks Department Budget Request for 1938, Moses says:

In 1934, the first year of the park consolidation, the budget of the Park Department had reached a low of $4,656,710.07 ... the deficit was made up by the assignment of relief workers to the maintenance and operation of parks, parkways and playgrounds, although I repeatedly warned the responsible city officials that the relief work would some day stop and that the problem of providing civil service employees for this work should be met squarely. In the spring of this year, the situation reached its climax when an order of the Works Progress Administration withdrew all the relief workers engaged in the maintenance and operation of the park system and forced the closing of many playgrounds and the abandonment of maintenance and repair in many park areas.

He goes on to enumerate in detail the WPA cutbacks: maintenance workers, mechanics, tree tenders, electricians, mechanics, monument restorers... But not architects, engineers, landscape engineers, or construction workers.

A December 1938 document in the NYC Parks Department archives, unsigned but doubtless written (or at least approved) by Robert Moses says:

Without a doubt the greatest achievement of the past five year period of the park consolidation has been the increase, over three-fold, in recreational facilities and the general rehabilitation and reconstruction of park areas made possible by the relief program. While the number of relief workers in New York City parks has fluctuated since 1934, there has been a total of 200,000 man years of labor provided to the park program.

This implies about 40,000 laborers per year, whom Moses was free to use not only on parks and playgrounds, but also on highways, bridges, tunnels and other projects that he controlled. Moses notes that in March 1935, the Parks Department had 33,000 relief workers[4]. Moses also notes that even on jobs that were contracted out to private companies, relief labor was used[5]. However, Moses also says:

Relief maintenance workers were reduced to a minimum, and the problem of paying for park maintenance with City funds was faced squarely. By 1936 all men on maintenance had been withdrawn by the WPA. By 1940 all WPA construction forces were withdrawn[6].

When he says "withdrawn by the WPA" he means transferred to other city departments[11]; I believe he has the year wrong, however; the layoff of WPA park maintenance workers (among others) took place on May 12, 1937 (see news release). This was a disaster resulting in the shutdown 142 playgrounds, the abandonment or curtailment of construction on 26 partially completed projects (because Moses had to transfer WPA construction workers to cover some of the laid-off positions), and an end to park maintenance. This should demonstrate the degree to which the NYC Parks Department depended on the WPA at that time.

On June 29, 1938, Moses, speaking of work being done in the Rockaways, says "We are widening the bottlenecks on the Cross Bay Boulevard. We are cleaning up a mile and a half of beach back of the boardwalk, by tearing down all buildings. We are furnishing you with a parkway back of the beach and with play and other facilities there. We are financing a large part of the cost by combining the very successful Henry Hudson Bridge, the Marine Parkway Bridge and the Cross Bay Bridge into one Authority financed largely by a ten cent toll for pleasure vehicles. The city is paying for part of the land, but none of the construction." This is an extremely revealing statement. Moses was not only Parks Commissioner, but also head of the Port Authority, the Triborough Bridge Authority, the Marine Parkway Authority, the Henry Hudson Parkway authority, and seemingly countless other Authorities. So when we search in vain to find out where the labor came from to build the bridges and highways associated with these Authorities (a thing that is never mentioned except just this once, by Moses himself) we can only conclude he used the thousands of federally-funded relief workers (CWA and, after 1934, WPA) under his command.

John Millet says[12], “The W.P.A. Parks Department alone [among all its other New York City departments, e.g. the Borough Departments] did not assume active direction of the work-relief projects under its jurisdiction. This fact resulted from Commissioner Moses' steadfast refusal to have any work going on in his domain over which he did not have full control. In consequence, the W.P.A. did not have supervisors bossing its park work; the New York City Park Department provided most of this personnel. Even the foremen who were carried on the W.P.A. payrolls received their orders from the city park officials. The city Park Department planned all work-relief activities in city parks and decided what work should be carried out at any one time. All projects and jobs were, of course, approved by the W.P.A., which furnished the labor and much of the supplies for the work”.

Moses' lengthy December, 1938, report, "Progress in the Park Department: 1934-1938", states that the number of Park Department (civil service) employees had risen from 3075 in 1934 to 7135 at the end of 1938, which number is far short of the average number of relief labor man-years (200,000 over 5 years) that he cites in the same document.

Therefore I conclude that any NYC Park Department project from 1934 to 1938, inclusive, was accomplished in whole or in part with federal New Deal funding and/or labor unless explicitly noted otherwise in its press release (e.g. those relating to the Cloisters, which was totally paid for by the Rockefellers). After 1938, only those projects where the Parks Department explicitly credits the WPA or other New Deal agency are included in the table as New Deal projects, at least until I come across better information.

The WPA ended June 30, 1943, because of the War. The WPA alone had spent $10,500,000,000.00 and employed 8,500,000 persons in its 8 years of existence[15]. All of the New Deal agencies together (primarily WPA, CCC, CWA, and PWA) spent $26,900,000,000.00[8] and employed about 11 million people[9] doing real work. That's how to fight unemployment. In the three years ending July 1, 1938[10], the WPA constructed 17,562 public buildings, 6086 miles of new water mains, 4091 dams, 8,885 miles of storm and sanitary sewers; built or improved 279,804 miles of roads and highways, 29,084 bridges, 357 airports, 15,000 parks, playgrounds, and athletic fields. Plus numerous surveys and countless projects in home relief, public health, nutrition, literacy, general education, recreation, music, theater, and art, plus publication of 293 guidebooks and pamphlets.
_____________________

1. Moses, op.cit. p.687.
2. Moses, op.cit. p.687.
3. Moses, op.cit. p.695.
4. Moses, op.cit. p.686.
5. Taylor, op.cit. p.3.
6. Walker, R.A, and G. Brechin, The Living New Deal, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California at Berkeley, Working Paper #220-10 (August 2010), p.16.
7. Walker, op.cit. p.11
8. Harrington, F.C. Questions and Answers on the WPA, Works Progress Administration (1939).
9. Millett, John D., The Works Progress Administration in New York City, Public Administration Service, Chicago (1939). On page 59, the author suggests that these cuts were made because “the W.P.A. had already undertaken so much park work that the question of increased city costs in order to maintain the new facilities threatened to become troublesome.” The workers affected were transferred to other city departments.
10. Millet, op.cit. pp.101-102.
11. Moses, Robert, Huge Park, Playground and Parkway System Nears Completion: Park Commissioner Outlines Projects Costing Millions, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday October 24, 1937, p.G5.
12. New York City Parks Department press release, March 17, 1936, which announces an “agreement” with the WPA about signs on its construction projects, without mentioning the terms of the agreement.
13. Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43, United States, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, December 18, 1946.

NYC Parks Department Press Release Archives

The Parks Department archives are searchable PDF files, meaning that they were scanned using optical character recognition. But they are old typewritten documents (sometimes carbon copies) that don't scan well, and furthermore have handwritten notations, which also interfere with scanning. In the following table, the Parks Dept PDF file column links to the New York City Parks Department press release archive at http://www.nycgovparks.org/news/reports/archive#pr. The next column links to a local copy of the text extracted from each archive; these are quite messy. The fourth column links to local versions of each archive, hand-corrected (by me). These are plain-text files, with the bare minimum HTML markup to allow me to link to individual press releases and to let you to search, copy, and paste, none of which can be done with the original PDFs with any reliability.

Year	Parks Department PDF file	Local extracted text (raw)	Cleaned
1934a	41861934_press_releases_part1.pdf	41861934_press_releases_part1.txt	1934a.html
1934b	41871934_press_releases_part2.pdf	41871934_press_releases_part2.txt	1934b.html
1935	41881935_press_releases.pdf	41881935_press_releases.txt	1935.html
1936	41891936_press_releases.pdf	41891936_press_releases.txt	1936.html
1937	41901937_press_releases.pdf	41901937_press_releases.txt	1937.html
1938	41931938_press_releases.pdf	41931938_press_releases.txt	1938.html
1939	41931939_press_releases.pdf	41931939_press_releases.txt	1939.html
1940a	41941940_press_releases_part1.pdf	41941940_press_releases_part1.txt	1940a.html
1940b	41951940_press_releases_part2.pdf	41951940_press_releases_part2.txt	1940b.html
1941a	41961941_press_releases_part1.pdf	41961941_press_releases_part1.txt	1941a.html
1941b	41971941_press_releases_part2.pdf	41971941_press_releases_part2.txt	1941b.html
1942	41981942_press_releases.pdf	41981942_press_releases.txt	1942.html
1943	41991943_press_releases.pdf	41991943_press_releases.txt	1943.html
1944a	42001944_press_releases_part1.pdf
1944b	42011944_press_releases_part2.pdf
1945	42021945_press_releases.pdf
1946	42031946_press_releases.pdf

In the 1943 archive, only the entries relevant New Deal projects have been cleaned. The ones after that have not been cleaned at all.