English:
Photograph of mural "Post Office work room," by Alfredo de Giorgio Crimi at the Ariel Rios Federal Building in Washington, D.C.
Notes:
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Date: 1937; dimensions: 7' x 13' 6".
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Photographed as part of an assignment for the General Services Administration.
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Title, date and keywords from information provided by the photographer.
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Credit line: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and * Gift; Carol M. Highsmith; 2009; (DLC/PP-2009:083).
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Forms part of: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
More information at
The Living New Deal
Mural information from the
General Services Administration
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Post Office Work Room
shows the next stop in the mail's journey, after its departure from the suburban station in the mural on the left, toward its final destination. To produce the mural, Crimi spent time in the New York General Post Office Building, now the James A. Farley Post Office Building, sketching equipment and postal employees. The result is an accurate and thoughtfully composed rendering of the multifarious activities of an urban post office. The design is anchored by the strong horizontal and perpendicular lines of the furniture and machinery, including a mail chute on the left and a conveyor belt in the background. Amid this equipment, men perform their tasks: in the right foreground, three men handle incoming mail bags; behind them, five men sort letters on the conveyor belt, organizing them by size before sending them to the stamping machine; on the far left, a man receives and sorts parcels sliding down the chute; and in the left foreground, two men send out mail via pneumatic tubes. The array of activity highlights the modern advances of the Post Office while capturing the human element of cooperation and attention to detail.