Working New Deal New York

Frank da Cruz
fdc@columbia.edu
August 15, 2015
Last update: Mon Dec 31 14:18:06 2018
The New Deal ended in 1943 and left behind a rich legacy of parks, playgrounds, schools, bridges, tunnels, dams, airports, and so on. But it also created a large number — perhaps millions — of jobs that still exist today. So despite all efforts to kill it off and erase it from history, this is how the New Deal lives on. Read more below the images.
  (Click on any photo to enter)

The New Deal Lives On

working4000 working4005 working4010 working4015 working4016 working4020 working4030 working4040 working4041 working4100 working4110 working1010 working3000 working3080 working3200 working3210 working3220 working3230 working3010 working3100 working3110 working3120 working3130 working3140 working3150 working3160 working3170 working3090 working3300 working3310 working3320 working3330 working3340 working3350 working3360 working3400 working3370 working3390 working3380 working3385 working3410 working3420 working3430 working3440 working3450 working3460 working3470 working3480 working3490 working3590 working3500 working3510 working3520 working3530 working3550 working3560 working3020 working3040 working3050 working1020 working1030 working1040 working1050 working1060 working3060 working3070 working1070 working1080 working2000 working2200 working2210 working2220

Tree Removal

working2100 working2110 working2120 working2130 working2140 working2142 working2143 working2144 working2145 working2146 working2147 working2150 working2160 working2170 working2172 working2175 working2180 working2185 working2190 working2195 working2300 working2310 working2320 working2330 working2340 working2400 working2410 working2420 working2430 working2440 working2450 working2460 working2480 working2490 working2500 working2510 working3600 working3610

Consider that in New York City alone, about 400 parks and playgrounds were created under the New Deal. Park maintenance is a lot of work: cleaning bathrooms, mowing lawns, trimming trees and shrubbery, collecting trash, raking leaves, changing light bulbs, removing dead trees and planting new ones, keeping the athletic facilities and playground equipment in good repair, unclogging drains; gardening, patrolling for safety, controlling rats, and on and on. In addition, some parks have swimming pools that need a maintenance crew and lifeguards and swimming instructors, and others have buildings with active staff that provides services to the public.

Williamsburg Oval Park Recreation Center One example is Oval Park in the Bronx. Pictured at left is the Williamsbridge Oval Recreation Center, that has a fully-equipped gym, a public computer room, a game room, classes, lockers, areas for meetings, and a reception desk. People work here today because Oval Park and its Recreation Center were built by the WPA in the 1930s. Not only that, its very existence helps other parts of the economy; for example, the makers and sellers of the exercise bikes, treadmills, and other fitness equipment; the pingpong, pool, knock hockey, and other gaming tables, the computers and networking equipment, and also businesses in the neighborhood because of all the people who visit the park.

Furthermore, facilities such as these must be renovated from time to time, pumping hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars into the real economy, the one where people work for a living: plumbers, electricians, construction workers, haulers, and so on. The images in this section show just a very small sample of real people doing real work in Oval Park and some other nearby parks, thanks to the New Deal.

Of course the parks are not the only place in the Bronx with New Deal jobs carried forward into the 21st Century. We also have a courthouse, at least two colleges, several post offices, libraries, and public schools; the Triborough and Whitestone bridges, the IND subway lines, the Henry Hudson and Hutchinson River Parkways, Orchard Beach, at least two public golf courses, the Arthur Avenue Market, a reservoir with New Deal gate houses, and tons of infrastructure. And that's just in the Bronx!

Created by Photogallery 2.33 December 31, 2018