States into the war however, Harriman negotiated an agreement with the Emergency Fleet Corporation whereby the EFC undertook to build the Bristol shipyard and lease it from MSC in return for MSC's construction of forty 9,000 ton freighters at the yard for a fixed price. The first keels were laid at the yard in September 1917 and the first launching took place in August 1918. The shipyard built by the EFC attracted 11,000 workers and their families to Bristol, and the local property market was quickly exhausted. After rejecting a proposal to declare the city a war zone in order to requisition existing housing for the shipyard workers, the EFC decided to initiate an ambitious new housing project instead. The project was approved by the U.S. Congress in December 1917, and $35 million was appropriated to pay for it. The Bristol housing project—the largest single housing project undertaken by the EFC—created an entire new township in Bristol which was dubbed "Harriman" after the proprietor of the MSC. Construction began in March 1918 and the first buildings were completed by July, although workers at first declined to occupy them due to high rents. When completed, the new township comprised 320 houses, 278 apartments and 22 dormitories housing a total of 3,800 workers and their families. The township had its own sewage, water and lighting systems, and 212 of the apartments and 66 bungalows were supplied with steam heating from a central heating plant. In addition to the housing itself, 18 stores, a school, a 40-bed hospital, a 500-room hotel known as the "Victory Hotel" and a vast "Merchant Restaurant" capable of serving 12,000 meals a day were constructed. In spite of the great expense that went into construction of the Bristol shipyard and the new township of Harriman, the yard was unable to complete a single ship before the end of the war. However, both the EFC and Harriman himself anticipated a shipbuilding boom in the postwar period, and it was decided to complete all forty of the merchant ships originally ordered. Contrary to their expectations however, the war was followed not by a boom but by a shipbuilding slump. By 1921 there was no more work for the shipyard, and in February of that year it was permanently closed. The government thereafter auctioned off the properties of Harriman township by individual lot, but was able to realize only $870,000 from