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What is now the "... Journal & Topics building served as Des Plaines’ main post office from 1941 to 1974. Even though the Des Plaines Post Office’s building had only been built in 1930, by 1938 the volume of mail handled by had increased enough to warrant a new, larger facility. Scouting the city for the ideal location, the Federal Works Agency of the Public Buildings Administration found it directly next door, at the corner of Graceland and Webford. The contract to build the $135,000 building was let on March 1, 1940 with a target opening date of January 1, 1941. In...

The Shasta County Veterans Memorial Building was constructed with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) and completed in 1939. There is a bronze plaque near the entrance marking the contribution of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, i.e., the PWA. A 2009 article in the Redding Record Searchlight said the following about the hall: "Built with New Deal economic stimulus money during the Great Depression, the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Redding turns 70 this year and it's probably never looked better - belying decades of often tense relations between local veterans and Shasta County officials over the hall's operation and maintenance..." The...

The old Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House dates to 1902-1907 and today serves as the New York branch of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, as well as housing the New York branch of the National Archives and the records of Reginald Marsh. During the Great Depression, the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) funded artist Reginald Marsh to decorate the main rotunda ceiling with a series of massive frescoes.  The frescoes, painted in 1936-37, depict eight New York Harbor scenes and eight portraits of great navigators. The ensemble is one of the most magnificent of New Deal mural installations in New York City.  

The Bronx General Post Office houses a set of 13 magnificent mural panels—collectively titled "Resources of America"— by Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson Shahn. A Lehman College Guide to Public Art in the Bronx has this to say about the Shahn murals: "In the fall of 1938 Ben Shahn, assisted by his wife Bernarda Bryson Shahn, began work on the cartoons for a major cycle of thirteen egg tempera on plaster frescos for the Bronx General Post Office. The project was created under the US Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, a new deal art program which produced public works in federal...

The historic Bronx General Post Office was built from 1935 to 1937.   It was designed by consulting architect Thomas Harlan Ellett (1880-1951) for the Treasure Department's Office of the Supervising Architect, Louis Simon. The building is constructed of smooth gray brick, features graceful arched window openings, and is surrounded at the base by a granite terrace. The post office is fronted by two New Deal sculptures by Henry Kreis and Charles Rudy.  Inside there is a large set of murals by Ben Shahn.  The sculptures were landmarked by the city of New York in 1975 and the murals were landmarked in 2013. In 2014 the post office was closed...

The Rhinebeck post office was built in 1939 in the stone Dutch Colonial style popular around the Hudson Valley. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took a lively interest in the local architecture in Dutchess County, his family's ancestral home, insisted that the model for this post office should be "Kipsbergen," an 18th century Rhinebeck home occupied by his ancestors, the Beekmans.  That house had burned in the early 20th century; some of its stones were used in construction of the post office. FDR, Postmaster General James Farley and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. were all present at the dedication ceremony on May...

The Poughkeepsie post office has five large murals on the walls depicting local scenes from the 17th to 20th centuries.  Two horizontal murals at either end of the lower lobby are views of Poughkeepsie from across the Hudson in 1839 and 1940; those are by Georgina Klitgaard and Charles Rosen, respectively. On the mezzanine floor are three murals by Gerald Foster. One depicts Pilgrims and Indians on the site of Poughkeepsie in 1692. The second shows the hamlet of Poughkeepsie in 1730 (not shown here).   The third and largest one shows delegates from New York meeting in Dutchess County to ratify...

The magnificent Poughkeepsie post office was built by the Treasury Department as part of the New Deal in 1937-39.  The architecture is a kind of colonial revival done in the rough stone style of the Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley.  The post office lobby contains exceptional murals  depicting six scenes in local and state history (see accompanying mural page). The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. FDR took a keen interest in post offices near his family home in Hyde Park.  As the wikipedia entry describes it: "The building was the second of five post offices...

The Hyde Park NY post office has murals covering all four walls painted by Olin Dows in 1941. Dows called the group of 19 panels, "Professions and Industries of Hyde Park."  He provided a guide to his murals in booklet form (shown below). The project was paid for by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

Originally built as the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse and now the Federal Building and Courthouse, the building was completed as a federal Public Works Administration (PWA) project with Treasury Department funding in 1935. "Commissioned by the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts, eight murals painted by artist and Cornell University art professor Kenneth Leland Washburn (1904-1989) on the lobby's upper walls depict scenes pertaining to local agriculture, industry, transportation, and the U.S. mail service." (www.gsa.gov) Kenneth Washburn Modern Worker In Industry & Agriculture Modern & Ancient Methods Of Communication Communication By Earth, Water, & Air Thrift & Postal Savings System 1938 Oil on canvas: 57” x 58” each Installed...