For our last post for Preservation Month, let's take a look at Parkbelt Homes! In 1938, General Houses of Chicago built 10 experimental streamlined houses here in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Parkbelt Houses in Greenbelt were composed of concrete slabs, steel frames and prefab panels. These modern homes were considered cutting edge at the time. General Houses exhibited an almost identical model to the #Greenbelt Parkbelt Homes in the Homes of Tomorrow Exhibition at the 1933 Chica

Let's look at the buildings of Greenbelt, Maryland's historic civic and commercial core! First up is the Community Center, completed in 1937 and considered one of the finest Streamline Moderne art deco civic buildings in the region. Another example of Streamline Moderne art deco architecture in Greenbelt, Maryland is the Center (now Roosevelt Center). Completed in 1937, the Center is at the heart of historic Greenbelt and home to the Greenbelt Co-op Supermarket & Pharmacy and

The month of May is Historic Preservation Month! Let's talk about the types of homes in historic #Greenbelt, Maryland! The original 1937 houses and apartment buildings remain. Influenced by Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities, they were grouped aesthetically with courts to catch prevailing breezes. There were four types of houses in Greenbelt: Cinder block, Brick, Defense and Parkbelt. Cinder block houses (our Historic House is one) are 44% of the existing original 1937 houses. T

The Greenbelt Museum Historic House is GREAT for kids! We're actually hands on! No ropes! Whether it is dressing up, doing activities like a 1930s family or enjoying the house itself, we are seriously kid-friendly fun. Come see for yourself! #maryland #pgcounty #tourism #retro #princegeorgescounty #house #housemuseum #museum #historicpreservation #artdeco #Modernism #kids #NewDeal #history #community #1930s

Our last Women's History Month post is about artist Lenore Thomas Straus, whose seminal sculptures are found throughout Greenbelt, such as the bas reliefs on the Community Center's front. An accomplished sculptor, Thomas Straus worked for the Resettlement Administration in the late 1930s creating public art in #Greenbelt and DC's Langston Terrace. Her sculpture "Woman" was a gift to Greenbelt from her daughter. Lenore Thomas Straus can be seen working on "Mother and Child," t

As part of on ongoing celebration of Women's History Month and the women who have been important to Greenbelt's history, let's talk about the only woman acknowledged as a consultant on the 1937 Greenbelt project: social housing advocate and professor of city and regional planning Catherine Bauer (Wurster)! She was friends with Man Ray and Léger, and influenced by leading Modernist social architects Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. Her time in Europe informed her progressive t

For Women's History Month, let's talk about the women who have been important to the history of Greenbelt, Maryland! Let's start with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the town's biggest champions. In 1937, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt made a surprise visit to Greenbelt. She believed decent housing and nurturing family environments were basic rights. She wrote a letter to President Roosevelt to intercede and complete the town as planned. Mrs. Roosevelt visited Greenbelt ag

This c. 1937 Lenore Thomas Straus photograph is of African American laborers at what is now the Community Center. Her "Promote the General Welfare" bas relief is in the background. Although African Americans helped build Greenbelt, it was not open to them due to segregation. Greenbelt's original 1936 plan included the Rossville Rural Development subsistence homesteads, a third of the project. Intended for African Americans, due to objections from local communities and then Ma

Another African American New Deal community in our region is Aberdeen Gardens in Hampton, VA. Originally named Newport News Homesteads, Hampton University sponsored its establishment in 1934. It was completed in 1937, the same year as Greenbelt. Aberdeen Gardens was designed by Hilyard Robinson, architect of DC’s Langston Terrace Dwellings, for local defense workers. It is the last intact Resettlement Administration community in the U.S. that was built by African Americans fo

Did you know that there are African American New Deal communities in our region too? Let's learn more about the Langston Terrace Dwellings in Washington, D.C. Constructed from 1935-38, the Langston Terrace Dwellings were designed by African American architect Hilyard Robinson, whose overseas travels and studies inspired its modern, Bauhaus-influenced International style. Robinson, like many Modernist architects of the era, believed housing architecture could be transformative