Help Save The Somerville Post Office Mural

[sjcap.livejournal.com]

There will be a public meeting concerning the proposed sale of the Somerville Main Post Office and the fate of the interior 1937 mural, 'A Skirmish Between British and Colonists Near Somerville in Revolutionary Times' by artist Ross Moffett hosted by the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission on Thursday March 6 at 7pm at City Hall. All fellow Somervillians who want to see this public treasure preserved, rather than sold off to the highest bidder, should attend this meeting.

Across America, the US Postal Service is liquidating historic post offices in the name of budget cuts. Many of these buildings contain significant New Deal era public artworks, like in Somerville. USPS has identified our main post office in Union Square as the only such post office in Massachusetts to be auctioned off. (Why us?) While the buildings are often repurposed, the beautiful artworks inside often get removed from public display and effectively become restaurant or office decorations for the new owners, available for viewing by appointment only.

If you have any concerns about the privatization of Somerville's historic post office or the preservation of the irreplaceable Moffett mural, it is important that your voice be heard now. Very important. The fate of Somerville's most cherished historical public art piece could be determined in the coming weeks. Please take the opportunity to join your neighbors and attend this meeting on Thursday to discuss the steps being taken to preserve Somerville's magnificent New Deal art legacy for generations to come.

Public Meeting: Potential Adverse Effects of USPS Proposed Sale
Somerville Main Post Office (National Register of Historic Places
Hosted by Somerville Historic Preservation Commission
3rd Floor Conference Room, Somerville City Hall
93 Highland Ave. Somerville
Thursday March 6, 7pm

If you can't join the discussion at City Hall, comments can also be forwarded to the Historical Commission at historic@somervillema.gov

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Naively, it would seem that the obvious solution is to raise the money to extract and relocate the mural. How much would that cost?

[ron_newman]

Is it painted directly on the wall? If so, that's a difficult thing to move.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Sometimes things that look difficult turn out to be cheaper than you'd expect. In any case, it seems like the way to resolve the problem for the long run is to separate the fate of the artistic resource from the fate of the valuable piece of real estate. It's possible that the desirable renovations to the building are much more expensive than mural removal, which would make the project easy to fund.

[ron_newman]

The worst case would be if the mural were painted directly on a load-bearing wall. These are good questions to bring up at the meeting.

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

Because post office murals were a widespread phenomenon especially during the New Deal, a lot of other communities have dealt with this issue, and many have them came the the same conclusion you did, achinhibitor, that saving the mural separate from the building is often the way to go. This means there is a body of precedent out there for how best to save an early 20th-century mural whether or not is on a load-bearing wall (although obviously, the latter is costlier). I don't have strong feelings on the matter, but I recommend that people who do look into the stories of other communities who have tackled this problem, and bring the best examples to the meeting.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I'd be more concerned if it were painted on plaster, which after this many years is probably being held together mostly by the paint (but in my house we can actually just remove the 30 or so layers of paint as a sheet!).

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

Good point. Moving a mural on plaster is doable, but may be prohibitively expensive, depending on the structure.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Separately from the mural, what does "privatization of Somerville's historic post office" mean? You mean that the building gets sold to a private owner, not something weird about changes to the way mail is delivered to 02143, right? I assume USPS is still going to have some location serve as a central full-service post office for 02143?

[ron_newman]

The 02143 post office is moving to a small storefront at 18 Bow Street.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

But "privatization" refers to the building, and not the operation of the mail services, then.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

I guess I fail at google but I couldn't find even one image of the mural on-line. Would be good to generate support to be able to see what is at stake.

[sjcap.livejournal.com]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67223140@N00/2635100314/in/photolist-51Rzw3-51RzvW-51REoy-51REof

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

Image from Boston Globe 1937:

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Do we know anything about the buyer of the building, yet? It's being kept annoyingly, frighteningly hush-hush.

[ron_newman]

Do we know that there even is a bidder yet?

[ron_newman]

According to Wicked Local, the post office will move to the 18 Bow Street storefront effective Monday, April 7. So if you want to see the current Post Office mural one last time, do so by Friday, April 4.