Wrinkle Treatment in Winfield, NJ

The Winfield Park Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Project (Project No. 28071) is a 700-unit development of 254 buildings that were originally planned and developed by and built for the defense workers of the Kearny, New Jersey, shipyards. This was the last of eight projects undertaken by the of the Federal Works Agency under the leadership of Colonel Lawrence Westbrook. In earlier stages, Winfield Park was known as the Rahway River Park Project. John T. Rowland served as the project’s architect. Winfield Park is located immediately off of exit 136 of the Garden State Parkway; the municipalities of Cranford, Linden and Clark surround Winfield Township, a governmental entity established to enclose the Winfield Park Project. The Township is bordered on three sides by the Rahway River and Rahway River Park (which adds substantially to the park-like setting envisioned by the planners). Units range in size and type from single-family homes to two-story (plus basement) two- and three-bedroom apartments, better known today as Townhouses; to one-story (plus basement) two-bedroom apartments; and one-bedroom apartments, better known to residents as “bachelors.” Within the town are located an elementary school, two-store shopping center and Senior Citizen Hall, Community Center, Mutual Housing Office, and Garage, Volunteer Fire and Ambulance Squad Building, and Municipal Building/Police Office.

The defense workers of the Kearny Shipyards had advocated early in 1940 for housing to be developed in the northern New Jersey area. These workers were early and vocal supporters of the National Housing for Defense Act of 1940, also known as the Lanham Act, and the program. In January, 1941, a report on the housing requirements of the northern New Jersey area indicated that 1000 units were needed. The Defense Housing Coordinator approved the construction of a 300-unit project in the Newark/ Harrison area and a 700-unit project “to be built as a project itself sponsored by a responsible committee of the defense workers who will live in them.” The housing committee had seven working policies that it had developed and that it wanted to apply to the workers’ housing, all of which they believed conformed with the original intentions of the Lanham Act of 1940 (“The housing is to be wherever feasible of a permanent nature, and after the emergency has passed these homes are to be disposed of, and in that way the Government is to recoup the initial investment… and they will be available for permanent homes.” The cost per unit was set at, and not permitted to exceed $3000.00.) and fit well within the .

1. Management of all community affairs, including relations with local government, should be in the hands of the residents of the new project. 2. Each unit should be assessable for its portion of local taxes, and every effort needs to be made “that both houses and householders should be easily and naturally assimilated into the normal scheme of the locality.” 3. The Federal Works Agency (FWA) would provide all streets, sewers, parks, and all other facilities for the project. 4. All dwellings built for civilian defense workers should be sold as a group to local housing corporation as soon as they are completed. 5. All stockholders in the project are, and should be considered as, householders. 6. All management and operating procedures must be carried out under the direction of the local corporation, and not under the direction of the federal government. 7. Housing Corporation must enter into a contract of sale, rather than a rental agreement, with each householder.

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