BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Greenbelt

MD -- Greenbelt:

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Description of Pictures: Happenstance visit. At the FDR Memorial that morning, they had a sign about how FDR had helped create Greenbelt, which was a planned community from the New Deal. And then I accidentally ended up there later in the afternoon.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. GREENB_130901_096.JPG: They had a carnival going on
2. GREENB_130901_125.JPG: Sculpture by Lenore Thomas, 2000
3. GREENB_130901_140.JPG: Promote the General Welfare Preamble to the Constitution, by Lenore Thomas, 1937
4. GREENB_130901_146.JPG: Provide for the Common Defense
5. GREENB_130901_153.JPG: Insure Domestic Tranquility
6. GREENB_130901_163.JPG: Establish Justice
7. GREENB_130901_168.JPG: To Form a More Perfect Union
8. GREENB_130901_173.JPG: We the People
9. GREENB_130901_180.JPG: Community Center The Greenbelt Community Center, originally the Greenbelt Center Elementary School and Community Building, was completed in the autumn of 1937, just in time for Greenbelt's first occupants. From the beginning, residents also used the buildings for meetings, adult education classes, recreation, clubs and sports teams, a town hall, library, and church services. Greenbelt's principle architects, Douglas D. Ellington and Reginald Wadsworth, designed the building in a streamlined Art Deco style. The glass blocks used in the stairwells for light, the streamlined inverted buttresses or cantilevered struts, and the four Indiana Limestone friezes on the facade are decorative elements typical of this style. As the number of students grew, the building also grew with a new wing added onto the building's north side (just visible on the left side of the Community Center) in 1967. By 1990, however, the building was inadequate to the school's needs. In the face of proposals either to tear the building down or to rebuild it according to modern school standards, the building closed as a school in 1993. Greenbelt Elementary School relocated to a new facility on the north end of Ridge Road. In March 1996, this renovated building reopened as a dedicated community center. The building continues to play a central role in the community as a meeting and recreational facility for all age groups including: a nursery school, an adult day-care center, a pottery studio, adult and children's art studio, private artists' studios, the Greenbelt Museum's exhibit room, the Greenbelt News Review's office, a public access television studio, a summer camp facility, and an auditorium/gymnasium. A forested green space once surrounded the Community Center. The public library to your immediate left was built in 1970. Originally is was housed in a classroom inside the former school and Community Center. The sculptor of the friezes, Leonore Thomas, worked on several government projects during the Depression. It took Thomas and an assistant over a year to complete the friezes. The carvings represent the Preamble to the United States Constitution. While working on the friezes, Thomas remarked, "We want to keep the designs bold and simple and sufficiently obvious that, with the lettering beneath each panel, any workman or child could understand them. After we finish blocking out the figures we are going to use the workmen around here [as models] for the faces and costumes."
10. GREENB_130901_198.JPG: Greenbelt The First 75 Years: 1937-2012
11. GREENB_130901_202.JPG: 1930s: Ground is broken in rural Prince George's County, Maryland for a green town to be built by the federal government as part of the New Deal. Construction is well underway. Both skilled and unskilled, African American and white workers were hired to build Greenbelt, but because both the county and the state were segregated, only white families would move into Greenbelt when it opened. Eleanor Roosevelt visits Greenbelt, one of several visits. She was accompanied by Will Alexander (right) and Town Manager, Roy Braden (left). Mrs. Roosevelt was instrumental in making sure Greenbelt's recreational spaces were completed when budget concerns threatened the project. Greenbelt's pool opens. Admission for adults is $.35, for children under 16, admission is $.20. Residents also enjoyed a handball court, tennis courts, horse shoe pits, playgrounds, and baseball diamonds. Cooperator Editor, Donald Cooper, writes short notice about race prejudice in Greenbelt. Although Greenbelt was racially segregated, it was integrated in terms of religion. Greenbelt residents were to be 63% Protestant, 30% Catholic, and 7% Jewish. The project is officially given the name Greenbelt and is one of only three green towns to be built. The other two are Greenhills, Ohio and Greendale, Wisconsin. President Roosevelt tours the construction site. He is accompanied by the head of the Resettlement Administration, Rexford Guy Tugwell. Tugwell convinced the president to build the green towns. Julian and Hazel Ashley and their three children, Lynn, Dorma, and Edward were the first family to move into Greenbelt. "The electricity was turned on the next day, so we used candles that night." Greenbelt celebrates its first Fourth of July at Greenbelt Lake. "Without question, the Fourth of July was the most glorious celebration in our town. People would come from all around to watch or match in the parade, or to participate in sporting contests, to picnic and to get a bang out of watching the fireworks." The documentary film, "The City," was screened for Greenbelters at the theater.
12. GREENB_130901_205.JPG: Construction is well underway. Both skilled and unskilled, African American and white workers were hired to build Greenbelt, but because both the county and the state were segregated, only white families would move into Greenbelt when it opened.
13. GREENB_130901_209.JPG: Ground is broken in rural Prince George's County, Maryland for a green town to be built by the federal government as part of the New Deal.lters at the theater.
14. GREENB_130901_211.JPG: The project is officially given the name Greenbelt and is one of only three green towns to be built. The other two are Greenhills, Ohio and Greendale, Wisconsin.
15. GREENB_130901_217.JPG: President Roosevelt tours the construction site. He is accompanied by the head of the Resettlement Administration, Rexford Guy Tugwell. Tugwell convinced the president to build the green towns.
16. GREENB_130901_220.JPG: Julian and Hazel Ashley and their three children, Lynn, Dorma, and Edward were the first family to move into Greenbelt. "The electricity was turned on the next day, so we used candles that night."
17. GREENB_130901_223.JPG: Greenbelt celebrates its first Fourth of July at Greenbelt Lake. "Without question, the Fourth of July was the most glorious celebration in our town. People would come from all around to watch or match in the parade, or to participate in sporting contests, to picnic and to get a bang out of watching the fireworks."
18. GREENB_130901_226.JPG: Eleanor Roosevelt visits Greenbelt, one of several visits. She was accompanied by Will Alexander (right) and Town Manager, Roy Braden (left). Mrs. Roosevelt was instrumental in making sure Greenbelt's recreational spaces were completed when budget concerns threatened the project.
19. GREENB_130901_229.JPG: Greenbelt's pool opens. Admission for adults is $.35, for children under 16, admission is $.20. Residents also enjoyed a handball court, tennis courts, horse shoe pits, playgrounds, and baseball diamonds.
20. GREENB_130901_232.JPG: Cooperator Editor, Donald Cooper, writes short notice about race prejudice in Greenbelt. Although Greenbelt was racially segregated, it was integrated in terms of religion. Greenbelt residents were to be 63% Protestant, 30% Catholic, and 7% Jewish.
21. GREENB_130901_236.JPG: The documentary film, "The City," was screened for Greenbelters at the theater.
22. GREENB_130901_246.JPG: Five Greenbelt residents and Navy Department employees, including Abraham Chasanow and Isadore Parker, were suspended from their positions for being so-called security risks. They were cleared in 1954. The film. "Thee Brave Men," based only on the Chasanow case, was released in 1956.
23. GREENB_130901_249.JPG: The Greenbelt Community Church opens. The Federal government did not build churches in Greenbelt, but it did leave areas of land where residents could build churches and throughout the 1950s they did.
24. GREENB_130901_252.JPG: The federal government sells 1,572 housing units and 708 acres of land for $6,995,669 to the Greenbelt Veterans Housing Corporation, which would later become Greenbelt Homes, Incorporated, the cooperative that thrives today.
25. GREENB_130901_287.JPG: Eleanor Roosevelt First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt took a great interest in Greenbelt and visited the town on numerous occasions. Mrs. Roosevelt participated directly in extensive planning and development. She believed that decent housing and a nurturing environment for families were basic rights that all Americans should enjoy. As Greenbelt's construction reached completion, many of Greenbelt's amenities such as swimming pool, playgrounds, landscaping, and allotment gardens were threatened by cuts in government funding. Wallace Richards, an administrator involved in building Greenbelt, knew of Mrs. Roosevelt's deep interest in the new town. He asked her to help restore the funding, writing to her on October 28, 1937, that "last minute economy would affect those very things we had counted on to hold the townsfolk at home, make them happy and community conscious, and prevent them from spending a disproportionate amount of their income in seeking relaxation elsewhere. If I were not utterly convinced of the necessity for the full completion of Greenbelt, I would not think of begging you, as I am, to assume an even greater interest in the town. But those of us who have been privileged to meet you know how you devote your time and energy to convince people that, in the long run, social and economic progress is a personal issue, that it means as much to work for the community as for the family. I cannot help but believe that you will feel as I do, that a completed Greenbelt is desirable and that a successful Greenbelt demonstration of cooperative community life would be one of the socially significant steps in this decade." In response, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote a note directly to President Roosevelt urging him to intercede in some way to ensure that the project included all of its planned recreational facilities.
26. GREENB_130901_303.JPG: Swimming Pool Progressive planners equipped Greenbelt with the kinds of outdoor athletic facilities that only rich people could afford during the Great Depression. Greenbelt's original outdoor swimming pool opened on Memorial Day 1939. It was reportedly the only public pool in the state. Residents also enjoyed a handball court, tennis courts, horseshoe pits, playgrounds, and baseball diamonds. Local residents still play tennis and field sports beyond the swimming pool on Braden Field. Greenbelt continues to offer superior recreational amenities. The City of Greenbelt reconstructed the outdoor pool entirely in 1988. The new pool features a graduated entrance area for small children, and a toadstool and slide for older children. The current Aquatic and Fitness Center opened in September 1991 with an Olympic-size pool. The new building with the current entry way is attached to the right of the original bathhouse, which the city remodeled in 1993 to house a fitness center. Elements of the original bathhouse remain: Notice the three circular windows above the original entry way.
Wikipedia Description: Greenbelt, Maryland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Contained within today's City of Greenbelt is the historic planned community now known locally as "Old Greenbelt" and designated as the Greenbelt Historic District. Greenbelt's population was 23,068 at the 2010 U.S. Census.

Greenbelt is known widely as a public cooperative community founded in the New Deal Era. Greenbelt was one of three "green" towns planned in 1935 under the United States Resettlement Administration, along with Greendale, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee) and Greenhills, Ohio (near Cincinnati).

History:

Old Greenbelt was settled in 1937 as a public cooperative community in the New Deal Era. The concept was at the same time both eminently practical and idealistically utopian: the federal government would foster an "ideal" self-sufficient cooperative community that would also ease the pressing housing shortage near the nation's capital. Construction of the new town would also create jobs and thus help stimulate the national economic recovery following the Great Depression.

Greenbelt, which provided affordable housing for federal government workers, was one of three "green" towns planned in 1935 by Rexford Guy Tugwell, head of the United States Resettlement Administration, under authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. The two other green towns are Greendale, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee) and Greenhills, Ohio (near Cincinnati). A fourth green town, Roosevelt, New Jersey (originally called Homestead), was planned but was not fully developed on the same large scale as Greenbelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped Tugwell lay out the Maryland town on a site that had formerly consisted largely of tobacco fields. She was also heavily involved in the first cooperative community designed by the federal government in the New Deal Era, Arthurdale, West Virginia, which sought to improve the lives of impoverished laborers by enabling them to create a self-sufficient, and relatively prosperous, cooperative community. Cooperatives in Greenbelt include the Greenbelt News Review, Greenbelt Consumers Coop grocery store, the New Deal Cafe, and the cooperative forming the downtown core of original housing, Greenbelt Homes Incorporated (GHI).

The architectural planning of Greenbelt was innovative, but no less so than the social engineering involved in this federal government project. Applicants for residency were interviewed and screened based on income and occupation, and willingness to become involved in community activities. African-Americans were initially excluded, but were welcomed[clarification needed] by the Greenbelt Committee for Fair Housing founded in 1963, and came to number 41% of residents according to the 2000 census.

Much of the community is now located within the Greenbelt Historic District; listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Greenbelt was the subject of the 1939 documentary film The City.
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