Building New York: How the New Deal Transformed the City

About the Program

New York City, 1930s. The Great Depression has brought the nation's greatest metropolis to its knees. Unemployment soars, bread lines stretch around city blocks, and despair settles over neighborhoods from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Yet out of this hardship will emerge some of the most extraordinary architecture and public works New York City has ever seen.

“Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously," declared President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as his administration began directing federal funds into cities across the country, transforming cities through the groundbreaking series of programs collectively called the New Deal.

Among the nation's cities receiving desperately-needed relief, New York was uniquely positioned to make the most of the New Deal. Under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and master builder Robert Moses, New York City channeled New Deal dollars into one of the most transformative programs of public investment in the city's history, reinventing all five boroughs with new housing, hospitals, schools, parks, pools, bridges, and public art.

From the grand Art Deco civic buildings of Manhattan to recreational facilities in the outer boroughs, the legacy of this extraordinary collaboration between federal ambition and local leadership is written into the very fabric of New York City and endures to this day.

Join architectural historian Matt Postal and the Art Deco Society of New York for an illustrated talk exploring how these remarkable achievements came to be and why, nearly a century later, they still matter.

This event will be available in person at The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York and via Zoom.

When registering, please be sure to choose whether you will be attending in person or watching via the live stream on Zoom.

About the Speaker

Our speaker, Matt Postal, is an architectural historian; specializing in 20th century architecture and the co-author of The Guide to NYC Landmarks. Matt is also a licensed New York City tour guide who lectures about architecture and teaches graduate-level classes on the 19th and 20th architectural history in New York.