New Deal Pointless Prize

[historygeek]

There’s so much history around us, and I, for one, am going to need biking destinations (since they can’t all be coffee shops and breweries this year). For those days when it’s too cold to stop outside for long enough to eat or drink– here’s a pointless prize for visiting New Deal projects.
What it is: During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” for Americans. Federal programs, including the CCC, WPA, and others, came to be collectively known as the New Deal. Projects ranged from new trails in parks to municipal buildings to recording folk music and oral histories. I’m defining this broadly– so if it’s federally funded and from the 1930s, we’ll count it.
The rules:
Take a bike-related pic at your favorite New Deal site. Post it in the “New Deal Pointless Prize” channel. Prizes awarded for:
Visiting the most New Deal sites by bike (and posting each to the channel).
Best New Deal Pic.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Prize for best historical description.

Need help getting started? Go to https://livingnewdeal.org/map/ to find a map of New Deal sites. But don’t limit yourself to these. Want to travel to a location where a famous artist lived while working for the WPA? Go for it. The site of a great music performance funded by a federal arts program? That counts. #bikenewdeal

[Jessica Hirschhorn]

Whoa!! Here are the New Deal sights in the DMV. This is awesome.

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[historygeek]

It’s a lot– more than any other part of the country (largely because of all of the federal buildings). I’m thinking I’m going to start with the fire departments.

[SarahBee]

Wow- my office makes the list! Ford House Office Building!

[Edelweiss]

Very interesting! There are 7 or 8 New Deal sites in Colorado Springs. One is a bridge that seems to have been removed many years ago. There are 2 murals in the City Auditorium– which is closed to the public now as it is serving as a Covid-19 isolation hospital overflow ward. I will try to get to the other sites so DC can see what the rest of the country got back then.

[historygeek]

I went for my first ride of 2021, took photos for three pointless prizes (including this one–my own), and of the three my phone decided it didn’t want to keep this one (my phone kept crashing and I also lost some mileage, but that’s another story). Tomorrow, then.

[historygeek]

@historygeek 203514 wrote:

I went for my first ride of 2021, took photos for three pointless prizes (including this one–my own), and of the three my phone decided it didn’t want to keep this one (my phone kept crashing and I also lost some mileage, but that’s another story). Tomorrow, then.

And this morning it showed up on my phone. The Riverdale Fire Department, built to replace the old firehouse with swing-out doors.

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[JoM]

As a former Elementary School teacher, of course I wanted to check out the schools on the New Deal List.

Sligo Creek Elementary School was formerly Montgomery Blaire High School, built in 1935. The building is much more impressive on the Wayne Ave side.

[Greenbelt]

Double post from the thread on today’s New Deal ride in VA. Come out to Old Greenbelt!

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/10/22/from-new-deal-utopia-to-strong-town

From New Deal Utopia to Strong Town
Jeff Lemieux
October 22, 2019

Greenbelt, Maryland, was born in the 1930s. We are one of three “green belt” towns planned to create employment and provide housing during the Great Depression. The town design was more utopian than traditional, with sweeping sidewalks and pedestrian underpasses leading from houses to the community core.

https://www.greenbeltmuseum.org/greenbelt-history
https://livingnewdeal.org/tag/greenbelt-towns/

[tomacsh]

Sligo Creek Parkway
“Sligo Creek Parkway is a landscaped, two-lane roadway in Montgomery County MD…” Completed 1936.
Near its southern most point in Takoma Park.

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[Rod Smith]

Did not intend to dislike that last post. Don’t know how to undo that. Sorry.

Log Lodge, Beltsville “Farm”, construction began by WPA, completed by CCC. A cafeteria for a long time, now a (closed) visitor center
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21995[/ATTACH].
Eisenhower and Khrushchev ate here.

This was going to be my palindrome photo (eye) but I found a mailbox later on the ride.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21996[/ATTACH]

[historygeek]

On the importance of historical preservation:
While the building is colonial, the Rossoborough Inn exists today, in part, because the WPA helped improve and maintain the structure in the 1930s.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21998[/ATTACH]

[historygeek]

@Rod Smith 203715 wrote:

Did not intend to dislike that last post. Don’t know how to undo that. Sorry.

Log Lodge, Beltsville “Farm”, construction began by WPA, completed by CCC. A cafeteria for a long time, now a (closed) visitor center
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21995[/ATTACH].
Eisenhower and Khrushchev ate here.

This was going to be my palindrome photo (eye) but I found a mailbox later on the ride.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]21996[/ATTACH]

I love the sign!

[JoM]

Founded in 1910 and expanded under the New Deal, the Beltsville Agricultural Center sits on 2,664-hectares (6,582-acres) and is part of the National Register of Historic Places. It was named after Henry A. Wallace, who was the 11th Secretary of Agriculture and Vice-President under FDR.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]22038[/ATTACH]

[Boomer Cycles]

Alexandria National Cemetery – Superintendent’s Lodge

“During the 1930s, the Civilian Works Administration (CWA) made general repairs to the lodge and outbuildings and erected a new flagpole. Alexandria National Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1995”

https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/alexandriava.asp

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[Author]

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