A Look Back at New York and America Through The WPA Guides

I really enjoy the Federal Writers’ Project Historical Guide Series of the United States, commissioned as part of President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. First of all, employing writers and artists to enrich their country’s heritage was an exceptional concept at that time. Author Nelson Algren, who wrote parts of the Federal Writers’ Project Illinois guide, noted how the WPA kept the suicide rate down and “served to humanize people who…had…lost their self-respect by being out of work,” while allowing them to feel a sense of shared purpose. Even beyond that, the guidebooks of America have become historical documents within historical documents. Because they were written during the 1930s and because the American landscape has changed a great deal since then, reading about how things were when the guides were researched and developed is fascinating.

The 1939 New York City Guide gives interesting insights into such well-known neighborhoods as Little Italy, the Bowery, and the famed and free-spirited Greenwich Village. The Dutch hustled the Indians out of the original Village, then the British Navy settled in, followed by Manhattan’s well-to-do, who departed upon the coming of the Irish. Other immigrants arrived and created a diverse Village, but around 1910 another change took place. Struggling artists began to move in, finding “quiet, winding streets, houses with a flair of the Old World and cheap rents.” These painters, writers, poets, and general rebels of the day rejected the burgeoning culture of materialism and convention, opting for candlelight over electricity, free love over marriage, and endless talks about Freudian theory, Socialism and women’s suffrage. And from that point on, Greenwich Village became a nexus of bohemian living.

Sad to read is the description of the beautiful old Pennsylvania Railroad Station designed by McKim, Mead, and White (as in the notorious Stanford), “inspired by Roman Classical architecture…lined with shops, a marble stairway…[s]ix murals by Jules Guerin” and a “great glass-roofed concourse. “ Despite much protest by historical preservation groups, this structure was torn down in 1963.

Many of the WPA Historical Guide volumes have been republished and are available through Amazon.com, or you may be able to find the originals at your local library. Or click here for the online version of the New York City WPA guide (without photos), and learn about the exotic “Syrian Quarter,” the Planters Hotel, the Tenderloin, how Maiden Lane got its name, and what a day in the life was like in 1938 Chinatown.