Cultural Infrastructure: The Legacy of New Deal Public Space

Author(s): Robert D. Leighninger, Jr.

Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 49, No. 4 (May, 1996), pp. 226-236
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of
Architecture, Inc.
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CulturalInfrastructure:
The Legacyof New Deal PublicSpace
ROBERT
D. LEIGHNINGER,
JR., Louisiana State University

Theagenciesof the Franklin

D. Rooseveltadministrationhadan enormousandlargelyunrecog-

awareness of this legacy and to begin a systematic assessment of it. The circumstances
nized role in defining the public space we now
that
produced it may be unique, but archiuse. In a short period of ten years, the Public
WorksAdministration,the WorksProgress Admin- tects and others concerned with public space
istration, and the CivilianConservationCorps built and
public life should at least know about the
facilities in practically every community in the
New
Deal public works projects and how
country. Most are still providingservice half a
century later. It is time we recognized this legacy
they changed our social and cultural landand attempted to comprehend its relationshipto
scape. The knowledge could provide us with
our contemporary situation.
a surer foundation for future plans.
The New Deal public works projects
were a response to the massive unemployAN ANALYSIS
OFTHEROLE
SPACES
IN ment of the Great
OFPUBLIC
Depression rather than a
American life cannot afford to neglect the vision of a national need for
public spaces.
contribution made by the Franklin D. These projectswere heavily influenced calby
Roosevelt administration. This brief but culations of the number of
people who might
rich period of commitment to public build- be taken off relief rolls and of the
possible
ing produced many of the works that define stimuli to sectors of the economy producing
the public space we now use. It would be
building materials. Harry Hopkins, head of
a
to
that
there
is
the Works ProgressAdministration (WPA),
only slight exaggeration say
a
a
in
or
citizen
the
said bluntly, "The objective of this program
hardly community
country who has not benefited in some way as laid down by the President [is] taking
from the facilities constructed during this 3,500,000
people off relief and putting them
time. In addition to the roads, bridges, to work. The secondary objective is
putting
schools, courthouses, hospitals, waterworks, them to work on the best possible projectswe
and post offices-traditional
infrastruc- can, but don't ever forget that first objecture-that
most people might think of tive. '2 Nonetheless, there was an awarenessat
when asked about the New Deal, there were the time that a
long-term investment in
also parks, museums, swimming pools,
American society was being made. As Louisicommunity centers, playgrounds, colise- ana WPA AdministratorJames H. Crutcher
ums, markets, fairgrounds, tennis courts, observed, "It is true that thousands of Louizoos, botanical gardens, auditoriums, water- sianians have been afforded work in these
fronts, city halls, gyms, university unions, programs, but it is also true that residents of
and numerous other kinds of structures the state will enjoy for many years those new
built across the country. Most are still in roads and streets and their children will be
use. They constitute an immense legacy of
given added educationalfacilitiesprovided by
what might be called a cultural infrastruc- the men and women on the relief rolls of
ture underlying our public space.
Louisiana."3Some historians have even arThere were public works projects be- gued that a sense of need for public facilities
fore the New Deal and since, but for scope was as least as strong a motivator as the desire
and variety, there is nothing else like this in to reduce unemployment. Jean B. Weir asour history. Lifemagazinecalled it "the great- serts that "asthe WPA grew and consolidated
est public building program in the history of its policies, the social, rather than the ecomankind."' My purpose here is to promote nomic outlook became more and more pronounced. It was social theory emphasizing
Journal ofArchitectural Education, pp. 226-236
Inc.
the value of individual pride derived from
1996
ACSA,
?
May1996 JAE49/4

useful work and the need for cultural improvement in American society which lent
coherence and consistency to a program that
seemed, and in large measure was, disorganized in its method of operation."4
The WPA was not the only, or even
the most important, agency engaged in public works. The Works Progress Administration (later called the Work Projects
Administration) got the most attention and
the most criticism at the time. It has come to
stand in the public mind for all the New
Deal public building programs-this synecdoche complicates research-but it was only
one of several ingredients in Roosevelt's alphabet soup.
The first program to embark on construction of public facilities was the Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC). Beginning in
April 1933, it recruited young men between
the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight to
stop soil erosion, plant trees, fight forest
fires, create parks, build or repair roads and
bridges, and do other work in rural and suburban areas. The men were formed into
companies of two hundred under military
supervision and sent to camps throughout
the country for basic conditioning and six
months or more of labor.
Next into service was the Federal
EmergencyAdministrationfor Public Works,
known more commonly as the Public Works
Administration (PWA). Under Harold Ickes,
Secretary of the Interior, the PWA was responsible for the more traditional, large-scale
public works projects:dams, tunnels, airports,
and largerpublic buildings. It began in June
1933 and continued operation, with some
interruption, until 1942.
It became clear almost immediately
that the PWA would not have enough of an
impact on unemployment soon enough to
relieve the misery of the depression. This
was in part because large projects required
careful planning and in part because they

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relied on skilled workers and heavy machinery. As the winter of 1933 approached, the
Civil Works Administration (CWA) was
created to employ more unskilled laborers
in labor-intensive projects like road building. The CWA lasted only from November
1933 until March 1934, but it provided
useful experience for the creation of the
WPA the following spring. The WPA, led
by Hopkins, operated from May 1935 until June 1943, by which time World War II
had taken care of unemployment and diverted resources from domestic construction to overseas destruction.
For students of cornerstones and
plaques, it is worthwhile knowing that in
July 1939, the PWA and the WPA were incorporated under a single agency, the Federal Works Administration (FWA). They
maintained their separate missions and administrations, but the structures they built
were identified with the umbrella agency
and its head, John M. Carmody.
The accomplishments of all of these
agencies were enormous. The Final Reporton
the WPA Program, 1935-43 claims 40,000
new and 85,000 improved buildings. This
includes 5,900 new schools; 9,300 new auditoriums, gyms, and recreational buildings;
1,000 new libraries;7,000 new dormitories;
and 900 new armories, 400 of which were
also community centers and recreational
buildings (many of the rest have since been
converted to such).' WPA workers built
2,302 stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers;
52 fairgrounds and rodeo grounds; 1,686
parks covering 75,152 acres; 3,085 playgrounds; 3,026 athletic fields; 805 swimming pools and 848 wading pools; 1,817
handball courts; 10,070 tennis courts; 2,261
horseshoe pits; 1,101 ice-skating areas; 228
band shells and 138 outdoor theaters; 254
golf courses; and 65 ski jumps.6
The final report of the PWA provides
less specific totals (but, unlike the WPA, has

1. CentralParkZoo,NewYorkCity,PWA,1934.

2. Conservatory
Garden,CentralPark,NewYorkCity,PWA,1934. Quietinwinter,this is a
favoritesite forweddingsin otherseasons.

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Goalsand Agendas

3. Chicagoshoreline,WPA/PWA,
1938. Tothe northis a WPAbeachhousethatlookslikean
ocean liner.

microfilm records on a project-by-project

basis for those with the patience to view
them). In addition to dams, airports,
bridges, hospitals, and courthouses, this
agency gave the nation 7,488 educational
buildings, 103 auditoriums and armories,
and 149 recreational buildings.7
The CCC developed more than eight
hundred state parks. The "soil soldiers" restored 3,980 historic structures, built 204
lodges and museums, improved 5,000 miles
of beaches, built 4,622 fish-rearing ponds,
surveyed and mapped millions of acres and
hundreds of lakes, and planted 3 billion
trees.8They refurbished and made more accessible important historic sites like
Gettysburg, Appomattox, Chickamauga,
Mesa Verde, and Fort Frederick.
Many of the projects constructed by
these agencies were modest. Others were
spectacular, even by modern standards. The
Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway, the
Key West Overseas Highway, Mount
Hood's Timberline Lodge, the Orange
Bowl, the Chicago Waterfront, Washington
National Airport, the naturalistic animal
habitats at the Saint Louis Zoo, and the Lincoln Tunnel are all very impressive, even
monumental, undertakings. We view them
with respect, but we also take them for

granted now. They are a fixed part of the

landscape. We inherited them, it seems,
from earlier ages of master building. How
many of us realize that they and their thousands of less eye-catching companions did
not accumulate slowly over a century or two
but were all bequeathed to us in one short
space of ten years by a (more or less) coordinated government program?
One reason why we fail to recognize
that these public spaces were all constructed
during the same time period is that there was
no attempt to impose a uniform style on
them. Enough buildings followed the
"starvedclassicism"or "Greco-Deco" style of
Paul Cret to generate the label WPA
Moderne. However, if that is all one is looking for, one misses the vast majority of
WPA/PWA structures. Some are full-blown
Art Deco, a few are modernist, some follow
regional styles like pueblo adobe or New England clapboard. Many were variations of
Colonial Revival that are impossible to differentiate from other such buildings constructed before or long after the New Deal.
Park structures may sometimes be identified
as "government rustic,"' but most look to
the average citizen like generic park structures. It is understandable that the scope of
New Deal public works goes unnoticed.
May1996 JAE49/4

The stated goal of public building programs

was to end the depression or, at least, alleviate its worst effects. Millions of people
needed subsistence incomes. Work relief
was preferred over public assistance (the
dole) because it maintained self-respect, reinforced the work ethic, and kept skills
sharp. Employed people would spend their
earnings, thus maintaining employment for
merchants and producers of consumer
goods. Building things would also stimulate
that part of the economy that produced
building materials. Enough of this pumppriming would, according to Keynesian
theory, revive the whole economy.
There were unstated but politically
useful fringe benefits of public buildings.
Because most PWA and WPA projects were
locally initiated, state and local politicians
could take credit for these civic improvements and legitimize their power. They, in
turn, would be indebted to the Roosevelt
administration for this support. The jobs
created by public projects were, themselves,
a way of building support for both local and
national leaders.
Those in Washington could use this
largess to favor some local politicians and
punish others. The prudence and deliberativeness of "Honest Harold" Ickes carried
the PWA through this era with very little
scandal, but the WPA was more heavily involved in local politics. Big city bosses like
Edward Crump in Memphis, Edward J.
Kelly in Chicago, Thomas J. Pendergast in
Kansas City, and Frank Hague in Jersey
City depended heavily on WPA projects.'0
It should be noted that this process was
more carrot than stick. Roosevelt was completely unsuccessful in using the threat of
denial of PWA funds to New York to get
his old enemy Robert Moses fired. Huey
Long worked to keep PWA funds out of

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Louisiana rather than have them controlled

by others.
There was considerable contemporary
criticism of the New Deal agenda from both
left and right and from inside the administration as well as outside. Business leaders
wanted no government intervention in the
construction market and saw public works
as socialistic or communistic. Labor leaders
feared a further depression of prevailing
wages. William Green, president of the
American Federation of Labor (AFL), called
4. FrenchMarket,NewOrleans,PWA,1938, a combination
of historicpreservation
andnew
the CCC, with its one-dollar-a-day wage,
construction.
"forced labor."" Ickes constantly had to
protect his budget from raids by the WPA
as Roosevelt's priorities moved back and program.Both were based on an ideology tend over half a century.This should not only
forth from immediate unemployment relief that a returnto rurallife would restorethe help us assess the effects of the public spaces
to longer-range economic stimulus. It is not virtueand stability(read:individualismand provided by New Deal works on the quality
surprising that Ickes felt that Hopkins was capitalism)being underminedby urbanin- of American life, but also make very clear to
dustrialism.They both devoted consider- us that such projects are not just a short-term
spending money too quickly and without
concern for the quality of the projects.12
able effort to reeducatingand controlling expense, but a long-term investment. This
Radical critics charged that an under- the residents of their varied rural settle- also means that the context of pork-barrel
lying purpose of public works projects was ments.'5Ghirardoalso notes, however,that politics is too narrow for an adequate assessto counter the threat of any revolutionary New Deal urban housing programsspent ment: these structuresare still in use long afaction attempted by the poor and unem- much less on educationand supervision.'6 ter the last pork-chopperwas buried.
ployed. Francis Fox Piven and Richard Furthermore,becausemost PWAandWPA
Cloward, among others, have made this projectswere urbanand locallycontrolled,
case. They believe that the Workers Alliance neither the content nor the mechanics of Termsof Analysis
of America, the best organized radical force this ideologyseemsto applyto them.
at the time, sold out to the WPA. However,
The dust has now settled.It maystill We might begin with economic impact, bethey also quote Herbert Benjamin, one of be useful to argueabout why these things cause it was economic concerns that
the Workers Alliance leaders, who defends were built, but the fact that they werebuilt brought New Deal projects into being. The
cooperation with the WPA as the best tac- is important in itself. It is time we at- projects accomplished their primary purtic to further the political education of tempted to comprehendwhat we have in- pose of providing employment for millions
workers.13 Other historians have argued that herited,assessinghow it has been used and of people, but many continue to bring milthe WPA created protest rather than sup- continuesto be used.I wouldlike to suggest lions, even billions, of dollars into state and
local economies as tourist attractions or lopressed it, that most activism was to extend a few startingpoints.
New Deal programs, and that "the Alliance
cal anchors for restaurants, hotels, shops,
owed its strength not to radicalism or grassand services. Mount Mansfield's ski trails,
roots activity, but to its role as a trades Long-Term
Investment
built by the CCC, have brought billions in
union for WPA employees."'14
commerce and real estate to the little village
Diane Ghirardo has exposed in the Architects, planners, and politicians can of Stowe, Vermont.
rural programs of the New Deal a political speculateon the valueof a proposedproject,
These payoffs were not uppermost in
agenda that she finds surprisingly similar to but New Deal projectshave a trackrecord. the minds of New Deal planners. If calculathat behind Benito Mussolini's New Town Their contributions,whateverthey are, ex- tions of future economic impact were even
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5. "JewelBox,"ForestPark,SaintLouis,PWA,1937, homeof flowerandgardenshows.

May1996 JAE49/4

attempted, they would probably have been

far short of the fifty-year reality. Thanks to
the fact that these things were built, we have
a baseline for comparing initial cost with
long-term economic benefit.
We should also examine demographics. Park, zoo, and museum managers can
tell us how many thousands of people use
their facilities every year. Multiplied by fifty
or sixty years, those numbers will be impressive. That is just the beginning. How are
these things used, by whom, and why? Art
museums may attract high-income adults,
whereas zoos serve a much broader socioeconomic and age spectrum. What is the
ratio of "active" and "passive" park users?
Why is ice skating in Saint Louis's Forest
Park a predominately white activity and
roller skating on the same space predominately African-American?17 This work has
already begun. For example, the studies by
William H. Whyte on patterns of street and
park behavior are a particularly creative
guide to urban planning."8 The works of
Donald Sexton in 1973 and of William
Kornblum and Terry Williams in 1982
were relied upon heavily in the restoration
and management of Central Park.19
Is it possible that there are building
in what was built and not built?
biases
type
Adolf Hitler had Albert Speer construct
large spaces for political rallies. Did
Roosevelt avoid politically charged spaces in
favor of more neutral or distracting ones,
such as zoos or gardens?It does not seem so.
Gathering spaces like community centers
and amphitheaters were common; some,
like the Orange Bowl and the Cow Palace,
are quite large. Yet when we have done a
comprehensive inventory, there may be
some biases to be found.
Public space is not just a matter of
profits and popularity. In both calculable
and incalculable ways, public facilities have
an impact on the quality oflife. The contri-

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bution of recreationto healthis well documented. The contribution of recreation

programsto crime prevention is less well
documented but generally recognized.
Other benefitsare less tangible.Educators
make regularuse of museumsand zoos for
formalinstruction,just as familiesuse them
for informal instruction and relaxation.
Family therapistsand developmentalpsychologiststestifyto the importanceof family outings. All of these things have
consequences,but reckoningthem in terms
of family or public expenses would be
purelyspeculative.
How do we reckonthe valueof being
outdoors?What does the opportunity to
"commune with nature" mean to us? In
their classicstudy, TheQualityofAmerican
Life, Angus Campbell and colleagues attemptedto assesssatisfactionwith community. They included schools, streets and
roads,parksand playgrounds,climate,services, and taxes in their ratings.Responses
to parksand playgroundswere among the
most stable and consensualof citizen perceptions,and they made a measurablecontributionto communitysatisfaction.20
Before the New Deal, many states
had no state parks.After "Roosevelt'sTree
Army"went home, there were eight hundredof them. New York'sCentralParkhad
FrederickLawOlmsted'smagnificentlandscaping, but no playgrounds. In its first
years,the PWA addedtwenty-oneof them,
plus a permanentzoo and a conservatory
garden.We can only guesswhatsatisfaction
with community and nation such spaces
haveproduced.
Finally,we shouldconsiderthe ideologythat mighthavedefinedpublicspacefor
the New Deal. We saw earlierthe concerns
for revivinga capitalisteconomyand maintainingcivil orderbehindNew Deal public
building.We also noted the pragmaticaim
of sustainingallieswho might delivervotes

6. Collegeof William
andMarystadium,Williamsburg,
PWA,1936.
Virginia,

in the next election. Is theresomethingelse

that might have motivated New Deal
projects?
One of the things that public space
can do is encouragethe integrationof all
aspectsof the community.Almostall of the
projects that the PWA, WPA, and CCC
undertookwere placeswhere people of all
ages,classes,and races(in some placesmore
than others,until segregationwas made illegal) might come together. Parks, playgrounds, fairgrounds,museums,zoos, and
gardensoffer something for almost everyone. They wereavailablewithoutadmission
pricesor user fees. Rooseveltwas leadinga
very diverse population during stressful
times. He also headed a party that combined within its ranksmany of the newer
and more diverseelements of the population. Furthermore,the constituentsof his
party included the less educationallyand
economicallyprivileged.Nationalunity, or
231

at least urban party solidarity, might have

been somewhere in his mind.
On the front of Kiel Auditorium in
Saint Louis, a building not designed by the
PWA but completed with PWA money,
there is a quote from Woodrow Wilson:
"Simple means should be found by which
through an interchange of points of view we
may get together. For the whole process of
modern life is a process by which we must
exclude misunderstandings, bring all men
into counsel, and so discover what is the
common interest." Harold Ickes believed
that community institutions would revitalize democracy.21 He thought that national
parks and monuments were "unique and
happy fortifications against unrest and
war.))22 Roosevelt, in the dedication of Glacier National Park, stated that national
parks would convey the message that "the
country belongs to the people; that what it
is and what it is in the process of making is

Leighninger

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,Tx
............

JOHN

M.

e
..

.....?

..

AL
-.. -......

?.

T i tc

!ft?C

,f

,.

i
,

...

7. JohnM.ParkerAgricultural
Center,BatonRouge,WPA,1937. Thecenteris host to rodeos,4-H
Clubconventions,andlivestockandgardenshows.

for the enrichmentof the livesof all of us."23

These maybe platitudesthat speechwriters
producefor ceremonialoccasions.However
they were intended, it might be worth our
while to take them seriously.
A prerequisiteto establishinga public
interest is a recognitionof a common humanity.One aspectof this is feelingsafe in
the company of others. Two historiansof
CentralParkconcludethat in the periodafter World War II, "manyNew Yorkersapparently came to view Central Park as
relativelysafeas theygrewmorecomfortable
with people of different backgroundsand
cameto acceptthat blackand PuertoRican
teenagersor gay men, as such, were not inThe causalityof thisrelationtrudersthere."24
is
but
ship open, the correlationis important.
Recently, this democratic ideal of
public life throughthe experienceof public
space has been eroded. As cities become

Domes offer spectatorsports rather

thanathleticparticipation-andonlyto those
who can afford the increasinglyexpensive
tickets. Shopping mallsare among the few
newlycreatedplaceswherepeopleof all ages,
classes,andracesnow cometogether.Besides
spendingmoney,the main activityafforded
by the malls is walking and hanging out.
Thesearenot unimportant
pastimes,but they
arenot highon the listof activitiesthatmight
makeour lives healthierand richer.Festival
havesavedold buildingsin inmarketplaces
nercities,but they,too, areprimarilyvenues
for consumption.They offer a sense of the
excitementanddiversitythatcitycentersused
to embody,but in a waythatis freefromboth
threatsandsurprises.
John Chasehassummarizedthis ideological shift: "The importanceof voluntary
and obligatoryparticipationin civic life has
been usurpedby the consciousnessof the arbitrarynatureof assignedculturalmeanings
and by the increasinglyimportantrole that
consumptionof goods and servicesplaysin
With
the formationof individualidentity."26
all of this space currentlydevoted to consumption,it is difficultto thinkof anyother
way to arrangepubliclife. Perhapsan awarenessof New Deal publicspaceas a vastcorpus canprovidea counterpointthatreminds
us of what we are missing in much of the
publicspaceconstructedsince then.

more economically and ethnically segregated,opportunitiesfor interactingin public with othersin the communitydiminish.
We lose a sense of diversityand no longer
practiceour skillsof civility.
The ideologyof New Deal civility,assumingit existedat all, is hardto find now.
Both public and privatebuildershavebeen
focusingon otherthings.A bookon Chicago
publicworksthatwaspublishedin 1973 devoted only fifteenof its 224 pagesto public An Example
buildings and sixteen to "beautification"
projectslikepools,parks,andplaygrounds.25 One of the more unusualand multifaceted
Convention centers,domed stadiums,and public spaces to be constructed with the
shoppingmallsarethe majortypesof public help of the New Deal is San Antonio's
spaces built in the postwarperiod. These Paseodel Rio, or RiverWalk.The SanAnplaces contribute to local economies and tonio Riversnakesthroughthe heartof the
provide activitiesfor citizens, but how do city. During the earlyyearsof the century,
they comparein termsof health,education, it had becomea sewerand was, moreover,a
and recreationwith parks,museums,swim- constantthreatto life and property.A flood
in 1921 killed fifty people and caused$50
ming pools, and historicsites?
May1996 JAE49/4

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million in property damage. Plans for diverting the river and filling in the old channel were discussed.
In 1929, Robert H.H. Hugman, a local architect inspired by the survival of the
French Quarter in New Orleans as a convivial space, drew sketches of a clean, landscaped river with walks, stairs, bridges,
shops, and food stalls. Floods would be controlled with a bypass channel with gates at
both ends. In 1938, a local hotel owner became interested in the plan and mustered
some financial support, but the City Council refused to match the donations. Maury
Maverick, a New Deal supporter, was
elected mayor in 1939 and quickly arranged
a WPA grant of $325,000 to add to the
$75,000 raised by river property owners.
The final project cost a total of $442,900, of
which property owners paid $82,700.
River Walk offers one and three-quarter miles (twenty-two city blocks) of landscaped walkways connecting thirty rock and
brick stairways (and one made of cedar)
with twenty-one bridges. It includes the
Arneson River Theater, which has amphitheater seating for one thousand on one
bank and a stage and dressing room on the
other. The theater connects with La Villita,
a complex of buildings that was the city center before the Alamo battle. La Villita was
restored by the National Youth Administration, yet another New Deal agency.27
River Walk has had ups and downs
since its completion. It was described as
"San Antonio's major tourist attraction" in
1948.28 Guidebooks were attracting tourists
and conventioneers to take boat rides. River
Walk fell into neglect in the late fifties but
was revived for the HemisFair in 1968. In

1984, it was awarded a Distinguished

Achievement citation by the American Institute of Architects.
In addition to the shops and restaurants that line River Walk, a three-story, en-

8. RiverWalk,SanAntonio,WPA,1939-1941. ArchitectRobertHugman's
office.Despitehis role
as creatorof RiverWalk,he was firedfromhis supervisorypositionin 1940 overquestionsraised
aboutthe allocationof WPAfunds.

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9. ArnesonTheaterseating.Thestage is on the otherside of the river.

closed shopping mall and convention center

now connects with the river. The current
commercial contribution to city wealth is
considerable. The Texas Department of
Commerce estimates that total tourist expenditures in San Antonio in 1992 were $1.8
billion. Tourism employs thirty-five thousand people and is the second largest and
fastest-growing industry in the city.29
Consumption has not completely
eclipsed the other functions of this space.
Downtown workers during the day and
families at night and on weekends can enjoy
the sun and flowers without an entrance fee.
An estimated 10 million people use it every
year.30 Arneson Theater hosts everything
from opera to flamenco concerts. River
Walk is an integral part of civic festivals and
community rituals. The King of the Festival
of San Jacinto, which began in 1891, rides
a barge through the city, and the Battle of
the Flowers has river-borne as well as streetlevel processions. La Villita is a focus of the
fiesta, as it is in other celebrations, such as
Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence
Day. There are two annual art fairs on the
riverbanks. At Christmas, luminarias line
the river as Mary and Joseph lead the
posadas procession in search of shelter for
the birth of Jesus.

Conclusion
We may conclude that there are benefits to
public spaces that are healthful, educational,
or recreational, that encourage the skills of
civility, and that are free and open to all.
That, however, does not mean that such
things are still viable. We must reckon with
the forces, in addition to consumerism, that
undermined these kinds of places. Our current environment encourages people to stay
at home. The decay of public transportation, the fear of crime in public spaces, and

10. Bridgeandpeopleon the RiverWalk.

May1996 JAE49/4

234

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the convenienceof in-home entertainment

have taken a heavytoll on public life. The
situationis not helpedby the fact that public bodies have lost the resourcesto maintain non-revenue-producing public
space-New Deal and otherwise.What are
the prospectsfor New Deal-style cultural
infrastructure?
It is possiblethat new politicalmovementswill help us rediscovera commitment
to publiclife and that furtherworkby environmentalcriminologistswill show us how
to make public spacessafe,31or it may be
that we are betteroff looking for community in cyberspace. Computer networks
don't know the race, gender,age, religion,
sexual orientation, or national origin of
their users.Only educationand accessto a
computerwith a modem limit the interaction. Perhapsarchitectsand plannersshould
find waysto providethesekindsof spacesto
everyone.Of course,there'snot much fresh
air or exercisein cyberspace.
HenryLuce'sLifemagazinewas not a
particularfriend of the New Deal. Therefore, its assessmentof the PWA is particularly interesting. "Time alone can tell
whether the nation could afford to spend
four billion dollars for PWA's 34,000
projects.But nobodycan look at a representativesampleof thoseprojectsand denythat
they are, in themselves,usefuland good."32
Well, we did afford it. That investment
stifledneitherlabornor capital.We moved
on to a period of prosperityin which we
could have built on this investment. Instead,it seems,we chose to live on the dividends for the next half century. In San
Antonio, "theparks,libraries,and cultural
facilities that constituted a major part of
bond proposalsin the 1930s had all but disappeared"in the following decades.33In
manycities,we havenot only not enhanced
our inheritance, but we have allowed the
principalto erodescandalously.The amaz-

ing thing is that the quality of building was Notes

such that dividends are still being paid.
1. "PWA Has Changed Face of U.S.," Life,
Why were we able to convince our1940:61.
1,
Apr.
selves that we could "afford" to make this
2. Quoted in Lois Craig and the Staff of the
investment in a time of economic depres- FederalArchitecture
ArProject, TheFederalPresence:
sion? Perhapsbecause we defined it primarily chitecture,Politics,and Symbolsin UnitedStatesGovnot as an investment in our grandchildren ernmentArchitecture(Cambridge,MA: MIT Press,
and great-grandchildren, but as a way of 1977), p. 355.
3. "WPAIssues Report,"New OrleansItemfeeding ourselves and our children. Long- Tribune,
Apr. 1, 1939.
term investment is politically difficult in the
4. Jean B. Weir, A WPAExperimentin Archibest of times. Instead, the focus is on an im- tectureand Crafts:TimberlineLodge(unpublisheddismediate payoff. This is increasingly the case sertation,Universityof Michigan, 1977), pp. viii-ix.
5. FederalWorksAdministration,FinalReport
in economic life as well. Selling assets or firon the WPAProgram,1935-1943 (Washington,DC:
workers
to
make
this
look
year's budget
ing
GovernmentPrintingOffice, 1946), p. 52.
good is much easier than investing in new
6. Ibid., p. 131.
equipment or training. As long as we see the
7. Public Works Administration, America
world only in the short run, we cannot "af- Builds: TheRecordof PWA (Washington,DC: Govford" public works. It takes a crisis like a de- ernmentPrintingOffice, 1939), pp. 288-91.
8. NationalAssociationof CivilianConservapression, a war, or a natural disaster to put tion
CorpsAlumni (NACCCA), Did YouKnow?phointo perspective what we can afford to do
tocopied handout (St. Louis:NACCCA, n.d.).
and what we cannot afford not to do.
9. Phoebe Cutler, ThePublicLandscapeof the
In architectural criticism, says Diane New Deal (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
Ghirardo, "the fundamental questions ad- 1985), p. 77.
10. LyleW. Dorsett,FranklinD. Roosevelt
and
dress what is built for whom."34The PWA,
the CityBosses(PortWashington,NY: KennikatPress,
WPA, and CCC built an incredible number
1977), pp. 45-47, 73-76, 88-89, 103-5.
of things, and more than most of what has
11. PageSmith, Redeeming
the Time:A People's
been built since, they built for all of us. Historyof the 1920s and the New Deal (New York:
Until the abolition of segregation, not all of McGraw-Hill, 1987), p. 440.
12. Harold Ickes, "My Twelve Years with
us had equal access to all of these facilities,
FDR," SaturdayEveningPost,June 12, 1948:111-13.
but they were still there to be used once that
13. Francis Fox Piven and Richard A.
injustice was corrected. This legacy is not Cloward,PoorPeople'sMovements:WhyTheySucceed,
just the varied public facilities, now into How TheyFail(New York: Random House 1977), pp.
their second half century of use. It is not just 80-92.
14. Anthony J. Badger, The New Deal: The
in the subtle ways that they have enriched
Depression Years, 1933-40 (New York: Hill and
our lives-some measurable, some beyond
Wang, 1989), p. 203.
measure. It is also in the reminder that we
15. Diane Ghirardo,BuildingNew Communionce found that we could afford to build a ties: New Deal Americaand FascistItaly (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
public life of variety and quality.
16. Ibid., pp. 6-7.

Acknowledgments
I am grateful to J. Michael Desmond and an
anonymous reviewer for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

235

17. Caroline Loughlin and Catherine Anderson, Forest Park (Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1986), p. 210.
18. William H. Whyte, City: Rediscoveringthe
Center (New York: Doubleday, 1988).
19. Reported in Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration
Plan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), pp. 23-31.

Leighninger

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

20. AngusCampbell,PhillipE. Converse,and

WillardL. Rogers. TheQualityofAmericanLife(New
York:RussellSage Foundation,1976), pp. 231-238.
21. Roy Rosenzweigand ElizabethBlackmar,
ThePark and the People:A Historyof CentralPark,
(Ithaca,NY: Cornell UniversityPress,1992), p. 459.
22. Quoted in Cutler, ThePublicLandscape
of
theNew Deal, p. 76.
23. Ibid., p. 90.
24. Rosenzweigand Blackmar,TheParkand
the People,p. 481.
25. Department of Public Works, Chicago
Public Works:A Historyof Chicago(Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1973).
26. John Chase,"TheGarret,the Boardroom,
and the AmusementPark,"JAE47/2 (Nov. 1993):75.

27. LouisLomax,SanAntonioRiver(SanAntonio:Naylor, 1948);GreenPeyton,SanAntonio:City

in theSun (New York:McGraw-Hill,1946), pp. 18889, 194-202; and CharlesRamsdell,San Antonio:A
Historicaland PictorialGuide(Austin:Universityof
Texas Press,1958).
28. Lomax,SanAntonioRiver,p. 77.
29. SanAntonio Conventionand VisitorsBureau,personalcommunication,June 13, 1994.
30. RichardHurd, RiverOperations,SanAntonio Departmentof Parksand Recreation,personal
communication,June 13, 1994.
31. Amitai Etzioni, TheSpiritof Community:
and the Communitarian
Rights,Responsibilities,
Agenda
(New York:Crown, 1993). See OscarNewman, DefensibleSpace(New York:Macmillan,1972) and Com-

May1996 JAE49/4

munity of Interest(New York: Doubleday, 1982);

AlbertJ. Reins,Jr., and MichaelTonry, eds., Communities and Crime (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press,1987); and PaulJ. Brantinghamand PatriciaL.
(ProsBrantingham,eds., EnvironmentalCriminology
pect Heights, IL:WavelandPress,1991).
32. "PWAHas ChangedFaceof U.S.," p. 62.
33. Heywood T. Sanders, "Building a New
Urban Infrastructure:The Creation of PostwarSan
Antonio," in Char Miller and Heywood T. Sanders,
eds., Urban Texas:Politicsand Development(College
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1990), pp.
154-73.
34. Diane Ghirardo,ed., Out of Site:A Social
Criticism
(Seattle:BayPress,1991),p. 15.
ofArchitecture

236

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