The New Deal in Washington DC, a virtual Preservation Cafe, will be presented Wednesday, November 17, 2021, 6:30 pm.
Benning Road Houses
Presenters: Richard Walker, Professor Emeritus, Univ of California, Berkeley and Director, Living New Deal, and Brent McKee, Project Historian, Living New Deal.
FDR’s New Deal transformed the nation’s capital in one short decade, 1933-42. It added a host of major federal buildings; renovated the National Mall and its monuments; developed the capital parks system; and added recreation facilities in small parks. The New Deal upgraded the sewage system to clean up the Potomac and redeveloped the waterfront. It added major bridges and improved miles of city streets. It paid for public schools and hospitals while building Washington’s first public housing. On top of all this, New Deal art programs enhanced the city with magnificent murals and sculptures. Dr. Gray Brechin, the founder of the Living New Deal, has said that “The New Deal’s work is largely unmarked and unrecognized. It’s like finding a lost civilization that has been buried and forgotten.”
Folger Park
Barry Farms Dwelling
The speakers for our November Preservation Café will discuss the Living New Deal, a project that has published a large colorful map of the work of the New Deal in Washington DC. This map folds to a pocket size and locates more than 500 New Deal sites around the city. The map also describes 35 notable sites on the back. The LND encourages visitors to use an inset of the National Mall area for walking tours.
A WebEx link will be posted below and activated shortly before the meeting.
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Our CHRS Preservation Cafes are free to CHRS members and non-members. Please consider joining CHRS!
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