Last year for Open House NY (happening soon – get your tickets now!), I wrote about the 8th Avenue Post Office, and how 95% of it is completely vacant.
I was recently there for a location scout, and while I was waiting for my contact, I noticed something I hadn’t on my first visit: this absolutely gorgeous art deco painting of New York City, located in the northeast corner of the building:
This isn’t some retro installation or anything – this is the real deal, painted by artist Louis Lozowick at the height of the art deco movement as a Works Project Administration commission.
Does it get any better than this? Entitled Manhattan Skyline, I love how New York is depicted as a geometrical metropolis, with a sense of power and permanence in its blocky design. The smoke and soot give the city a gritty, industrial feel, yet the soaring skyscrapers awash in sunlight feel almost futuristic, the cutting edge city of tomorrow. And all painted in those great shades of art deco brown.
Towering 18 feet off the ground, Lozowick’s mural originally centered on a number of barges heading full steam toward the city.
Sadly, the post office decided to cut this portion out in favor of a World War I memorial. Hey, I’m all for such a plaque…but was there seriously no other place to put it??
I heard that many of you will be touring the Farley Post Office for OHNY. Be sure to give Lozowick’s often overlooked mural a look, as well as its sister piece in the southeast corner.
-SCOUT
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