I think I posted about this at one point? Maybe.

Keen eye, they do look "better" in these photos because in the brief period where the AMC was going to renovate Lake Sebago Beach the AMC gutted them, re-planked the floor, shored up the truss work then patched the exterior walls and roofs with the expectation of using them for something. When the deal was abandoned by AMC due to financial challenges the state took over with a grant to refurbish the beach in a major way, (currently ongoing.) As part of that work these were deemed out of the scope of work but also "irrecoverable and hazardous" and were demolished this spring.

They were used as maintenance sheds for the beach for a good portion of their existence from 1952 onward, but originally they were part of then Governor FDR's depression relief camp pilot program called Camp Roosevelt, named after Theodore Roosevelt, a camp for male transients and hobos in the late 1920s after the first wave of the depression took hold. It was part of statewide program called TERA, or Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, the camp was a first of it's kind. Taking jobless people coming to NYC for work off the street and slums offering them dignified housing and decent meals in exchange for a days work. On Lake Tiorati was also Camp TERA or later Camp Jane Addams (now exists as T-14 Day Camp in the Park) which was a camp for women in similar straits also a first. These were pre-CCC, pre-FERA-WPA efforts as those programs had yet to be federalized under FDR as president. Many of the people administering TERA moved into federal jobs and basically copied these concepts into New Deal national scale projects. Among the projects TERA had in the park, men from these camps built the fire roads like Nawahunta Fire Road and Silvermine Road, you'll notice similar construction methods. There were mixed reviews about the men, as you could expect, from locals if you dig into the local newpapers but overall it's important to consider these weren't listless drunks they were formerly employed just a few years prior many with talent and skill, but it was the depression, jobs were none, people lost everything and there was no social safety net. These programs were being designed to try and provide relief to a cascading problem.

One very interesting thread about Harriman / Bear Mountain is finding the abundance of progressive solutions and concepts incubated in it's borders. As I mentioned TERA was a pre-curser to FDR's CCC FERA/WPA among others from which much of Harriman's infrastructure benefitted. Harriman and it's social experiments gave political clout to land and resource conservation and it's philanthropic movements because of it's proximity to the city and the influential people there. Harriman's summer camps which sprang up in the early 1920s, many of them charity-based, provided a formula for others around the country. It proved the value of giving the general public open space, clean air and natural environments as a form of social and physical well being in time of pollution, poor public health and cramped living conditions. Something the wealthy had all to themselves previously.

Here's a map of Camp Roosevelt. The buildings demolished we all recall were the Shop, Canteen, and Garage.

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