Public Art Being Privatized?

Somerville, Mass. - The Union Square Post Office is up for sale. It might become a condo development, or a café or a gallery. Once the deal is done, residents may lose access to the historic mural in the lobby. The building and the mural, painted by the acclaimed Provincetown artist Ross Moffett (1888-1971), were one of over 1,000 constructed during the New Deal, in part to build morale as well as monuments to U.S. history. “I think it’s particularly important to preserve the mural as a piece of public art that stems from the Depression,” Abby Freedman, vice chair of the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission, said at a March 6 meeting. Some in Somerville are worried that officials – in Somerville and in Washington – aren’t doing enough to protect the public interest.

This Somerville Neighborhood News excerpt is special to Open Media Boston. It originally aired on March 11, 2014 on Somerville Community Access Television. For more information on SNN, visit them on Facebook -http://bit.ly/SvilleNews. Or their website - http://www.scatvsomerville.org/snn.