Robert Moses to become commissioner of a unified New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. At the time, the United States was experiencing the Great Depression; immediately after La Guardia won the 1933 election, Moses began to write "a plan for putting 80,000 men to work on 1,700 relief projects". By the time he was in office, several hundred such projects were underway across the city. Moses was especially interested in creating new pools and other bathing facilities, such as those in Jacob Riis Park, Jones Beach, and Orchard Beach. He devised a list of 23 pools around the city, including one at Sunset Park. The pools would be built using funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal agency created as part of the New Deal to combat the Depression's negative effects. Eleven of these pools were to be designed concurrently and open in 1936. Moses, along with architects Aymar Embury II and Gilmore David Clarke, created a common design for each of the 11 proposed aquatic centers. Each location was to have distinct pools for diving, swimming, and wading; bleachers and viewing areas; and bathhouses with locker rooms that could be used as gymnasiums. The pools were to have several common features, such as a minimum length, underwater lighting, heating, filtration, and low-cost construction materials. To fit the requirement for cheap materials, each building would be built using elements of the Streamline Moderne and Classical architectural styles. The buildings would also be near "comfort stations", additional playgrounds, and spruced-up landscapes. Construction for some of the 11 pools began in October 1934. The pond, golf course, rustic shelter, and carousel were removed to make way for the new pool at Sunset Park, which would be on the park's eastern side. The blueprints for the Sunset Park pool were submitted to the New York City Department of Buildings in August 1935, by which point WPA workers were already working at the site. During construction, several Native American artifacts were found at the site of the old pond. By mid-1936, ten of the eleven WPA-funded pools were completed and were being opened at a pace of one per week. The Sunset Pool was the sixth of these pools to open. The pool was dedicated on July 20, 1936, with a crowd of 3,500 spectators. The center, the first of four planned WPA pools in Brooklyn, was composed of a