The Williamsburg Houses were the largest and most expensive project built under the auspices of the PWA at their completion in 1937. The complex was realized by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and received funding from the Federal Public Works Administration (PWA). An American Institute of Architectures regards the Williamsburg Houses as “the best public housing project ever built in New York." According to plans from 1935, the project cost a total of 12.5 million dollars to complete. Siting for the property was decided by a slum clearance committee, which was formed in 1933 under the PWA to study housing conditions throughout the city. The committee decided "where the most good could be done in wholesale clearance work," eventually settling on a nine-block area bound by the street of Maujer, Scholes, and Leonard and Bushwick Avenue as an optimal clean slate to build the Williamsburg Houses.

Congress Brewing Company Building, 1916. The complex of the Congress Brewing Company included a brewery and ice plant and encompassed 75,000 square feet of floor space. Established as the Williamsburgh Brewing Company before 1881, the beer purveyors legally changed their name to the Congress Brewing Company in 1895. Little can be discovered about Congress Brewery or why it closed circa 1916.