- City:
- Verona, NJ
- Site Type:
- Art Works, Murals
- New Deal Agencies:
- Arts Programs, Work Relief Programs, Federal Arts Project (FAP), Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Artist:
- Michael Lenson
- Site Survival:
- No Longer Extant
Description
The New York Times wrote the following in 2003 in a retrospective article of New Jersey-based artist Michael Lenson:
“[Mr. Lenson] moved to Newark and applied at the W.P.A. office on Halsey Street … Soon, Mr. Lenson was designing and executing murals for the state W.P.A. program. He went on to become assistant state supervisor in charge of the other muralists in the agency. …”
“Three of Mr. Lenson’s New Jersey murals still exist, all in Newark… The three other New Jersey murals are gone. ”The History of New Jersey,” a 16-by-75-foot mural for the dining room at the Essex Mountain Sanatorium in Verona, was destroyed when the building was renovated, as was a mural for the New Jersey Pavilion of the 1939 World’s Fair. Mr. Lenson’s mural at the Charlton Street School in Newark was demolished with the building.”
The Essex Mountain Sanatorium has been fully demolished; the land on which it sat became part of Essex County’s Hilltop Reservation park.
The mural at the Essex Mountain Sanatorium was Division Federal Art Project No. 1, WPA Project No. 3-289.
Source notes
www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/nyregion/creating-murals-with-paint-and-purpose.html https://www.nomorejello.net/yabbimages/postimgs/book/progressarticle.html "The Dawn," a New Jersey WPA publication; January 1936 issue, page 6. Found at the Jersey City Public Library: New jersey Room.Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish on December 7, 2013.
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