THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2020 When going to mail a package was a visual experience
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2020
The
135th Edition
From Our Archives
POST OFFICES
ART GALLERIES
MASTERPIECES OF DESIGN
AND
ARCHITECTURE
FROM UNTAPPED CITIES (C)
ANOTHER TREE LOST ON THE ISLAND
FORMER BRONX GENERAL POST OFFICE
New York City has more than its share of art. Works of art can be found throughout the city, in museums, galleries, and even scattered across its parks. However, an often overlooked venue for art in New York City are post offices. During the Great Depression, federal agencies including the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, often confused and conflated with the WPA, hired painters and sculptors to “secure suitable art of the best quality available for the embellishment of public buildings.” The Bronx GPO has been for sale for a few years. One developer pulled out. Stay tuned.
JAMES A FARLEY G.P.O.
The General Post Office, was designed by McKim, Mead, and White to complement their nascent Pennsylvania Station. The 8th Avenue facade possesses an extended staircase rising to fifty-three corinthian columns topped by a frieze with a quote, often mistaken for the post office’s official motto. The quote, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom…,” was adopted, and amended, from Herodotus describing the couriers of King Xerxes, along with inscriptions of names related to postal history, like Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XVI.
In the 1930s, Louis Lozowick, a Russian painter and art critic, painted two large oil painting in the lobby of the post office. Triborough Bridge and Lower Manhattan can still be viewed today, although the lower portion of Lower Manhattan has been covered by a memorial plaque (the lower portion can be seen on the original drawing). There are also remnants of a mural at the Annex to the Farley Post Office Building, which is unfortunately inaccessible to the public. This may change however, as the plans to convert the Farley Post Office into a train station and Amtrak waiting room got another jump start from Governor Cuomo. Stay tuned to see how the murals are handled in the refurbished terminal
FOREST HILLS POST OFFICE
The Forest Hills Post Office is located on Queens Boulevard, near the 71st (Continental) Avenue stop on the E/F. The building was constructed pursuant to the Emergency Construction Program Act in the Art Deco style. It is adorned with a 1938 sculpture by Sten Jacobson entitled “The Spirit of Communication.” Interestingly, the building has not been designated a landmark by the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Sadly the Forest Hills Jewish Center next door is slated for demolition. The two buildings complement each other facing a lovely park.
WOODHAVEN POST OFFICE
The Woodhaven Post Office is located on Forrest Park Avenue. It is located in a 1930s Art Deco style building. It is fronted by two pedestals topped with flowerpots that are reminiscent of similar decorative features installed in front of some City parks. The Post Office is located near the house in which Betty Smith wrote A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, both structures are demarcated with historical posts. The post office is decorated with Ben Shan’s mural entitled First Amendment. The mural was designed in response to Roosevelt’s commitment to the Four Freedoms (press, speech, religion, and assembly), of which the Roosevelt Island Four Freedoms Park commemorates. The mural depicts the Statue of Liberty, a New York State voters’ ballot, workers marching in protest, and the Supreme Court building.
CANAL STREET
The Canal Street Post Office is located on the southeast corner of Canal Street and Church Street. The building was constructed in 1937 in the Art Moderne style, in the same vein as the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The building contains an outstanding Art Deco bas relief designed by Wheeler Williams and installed in 1938.
MADISON SQUARE STATION
The interior of New York’s Madison Square Station post office features eight tempera-on-plaster murals entitled “Scenes of New York” (1937-1939), commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts funding. Four panels are found on each the right and left wall of the post office lobby, surrounding the central postal clerk counters.
Professor Dolkart of Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation notes that seven of the eight McLeary murals represent different New York City neighborhoods. In each neighborhood shown, someone is depicted doing a mail-related activity: “Lower East Side (reading a letter to a group); Broadway (carrying a letter); Central Park (reading a letter while sitting on the lawn); Harlem (mailing a letter); Greenwich Village (carrying a letter?); Wall Street (carrying a stack of letters); Park Avenue (mailing a letter in the box inside an apartment building lobby).” It may be the case that the eight mural entitled Immigration shows a mail sack but this has not been confirmed. (Dolkart) For the purposes of identifying the positions of the eight panels with photos on this page, the numbering shall proceed from panel “1”: the rear of the east side of the lobby (the right side when entering from 23rd St.), clockwise to panel “8”, the rear of the west (left, from 23rd St.) side of the lobby. Put another way, panels “1” to “4” refer to those panels on the east side of the lobby, rear to front, and “5” to “8” identify the panels on the west side of the lobby, front to back.
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
THIS BEAUTIFUL FLOWERING CHERRY (?) TREE LOCATED IN THE OCTAGON TRIANGLE TURNAROUND WAS CUT DOWN YESTERDAY OR TODAY SO THE AREA CAN BE REBUILT. THERE WILL BE A LARGE SIGN ON THE SITE NOW AND ONLY ONE TREE REMAINING. LUCKILY, THE SUNDIAL THAT THE RIHS PLACE IN THE AREA HAS BEEN SAVED. TELL ME WHERE YOU WOULD LIKE THE SUNDIAL TO BE RELOCATED TO.
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EDITORIAL
Looking at the artists who painted the Post Office murals, two names stand out; Ben Shahn and Louis Lozowick.
Shahn photographed the Penitentiary for a WPA project on the island and Lozowick painted and drew many images of New York City scenes and bridges. As we look farther we will discover more names we recognize.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
PHOTOS AND SOME TEXT COURTESY OF UNTAPPED CITIES (C)
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
WIKIPEDIA (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
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rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
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