On The Wall

The "old" Post Office in my hometown of Towson, Maryland, just absolutely LOOKS like a post office -  a two-story limestone building, built in 1937, with a nice little cupola up on the roof.  It's at Chesapeake Avenue and Washington Avenue, right in front of the old Towson Police Precinct and across from the former National Guard Armory. It's not even the real Towson Post Office anyway; it's a "Finance Branch," while the real PO is down on Cromwell Bridge Rd in a cluster of buildings that absolutely LOOKS like an industrial park, with all that means (it means it's as ugly as the old building is attractive).

The downstairs is all post office business - service windows and dropboxes and rental mail boxes. Upstairs, I have no idea what goes on. There used to be a sign saying that the office of U.S. Congressman Clarence Long was up there ("When something goes wrong, call Congressman Long." Man oh man, would he get an earful if he were still around today!)

The Honorable Mr Long is long gone now, but I really hope that no federal nabob gets the idea to level this magnificent building and lease the lot to a hamburger stand or something, if for no other reason than one can go there and see examples of the artform known as "United States Post Office Murals."

Quick history review: in the Great Depression (1929 - present) the United States fought its way out of the financial wreckage of the Roaring (Nineteen) Twenties and the Stock Market crash. One of the federal programs that led to people being trained and productive while learning a trade was the Public Works of Art Project, part of a program that saw hundreds of millions of dollars invested in construction of buildings like courthouses, schools, libraries, post offices and the like. In many cases, these buildings are still in existence and housing vital agencies.

One of the most visible parts of the Art Project was the painting of 1400 murals in post offices across the land. The murals were 12' by 5' and created to depict uplifting, cheerful aspects of American society, thereby providing encouragement to citizens during one of the darkest periods in history.

These three murals have delighted art lovers in Towson and environs, and their preservation is important. It's sad to think that a lot of building designers today think that two coats of "Industrial Beige #5" is the way to decorate a building.

The murals are known as the “History of Transportation” and were painted by Nicolai Cikovsky in 1939.