Talk:United States Post Office (New Rochelle, New York)

Paintings

I noticed an anonymous editor kept putting in something about paintings. What was wrong with that material? Jim.henderson (talk) 05:26, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The anonymous editor is someone who has been banned from editing in Wikipedia after an egregious pattern of abuse. As discussed at WP:Banning policy#Enforcement by reverting edits, this user's attempts to edit around the ban (by means of sockpuppets and anonymous IPs) are reverted.
BTW, as I recall the banned user has insisted on calling these paintings "murals" rather than "paintings", although sources specifically describe them as oil paintings on canvas. --Orlady (talk) 22:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I confess to being much confused. The nameless one left a note in my talk page, rather than here in the article's talk page, linking to an official Westchester document and an old NYTimes article that mention the pictures as murals. What the evidence is to the contrary, I do not know and do not understand why it is not discussed here. If this little question of the physical nature of the artwork is genuinely controversial, it needn't shut out the art from the article. Rather than come down one way or the other, we can either omit that particular detail or provide citations for both sides of the question. Ah, well, I took the photo a few months ago without going inside. When long warm days return I'll probably come through again, lock the bike outside, and inspect the subject directly. Maybe take a few interior photos. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello, in addition to the above comments, leaving out the information doesn't make any sense and leaves the article without merit. Currently a development project at LeCount Square results in the demolition of the US Post Office which is listed on the NRHP. The nomination form states that the original terra cotta exterior, which was an unusual but integral component of its Art Moderne style, was replaced in the 1960s and the lobby was completely remodeled. The form concludes that, due to these changes, "the building has substantially lost its integrity of design and materials with the exception of three murals placed in the lobby in 1940, which still remain." Based on this description from the form (which was prepared by the NYSOPRHP National Register and Survey Coordinator in 1986), the New Rochelle City Council has recently agreed that the building itself has lost its architectural significance, and its complete preservation is not warranted. The City Council did find that the curved faade of the US Post office is a well known landmark in the City. Therefore, the proposed project will be required to incorporate the existing geometry into the design of the building at the corner of North Avenue and Huguenot Street. The developer has committed to removing and relocating the murals to a mutually acceptable location for display and a Conservation Treatment Plan for the historic murals has been submitted and has been reviewed by the City. I am not a wikipedia member but I do have the supporting pdf. document for this information and photographs of the murals to contribute as well if that would help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.64.213.10 (talk) 21:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If there are good sources, any of this may be useful. Y'see, it's a problem of credibility. The main way we know what kind of editors we're dealing with is their past contributions; their track record. If you have no account, you never get a record, hence no respect. When this is lacking, we have to inspect the material itself, which usually requires more time and thought. Getting an account is easy; just click the sign in at the upper right corner and answer a few simple questions. Then your actions are recorded and you get an easy way of checking up on changes to your favorite articles.

On the other hand there are people who have an account and a not bad track record, but no good sources, so someone who's got good, reliable, convenient sources, is often able to slog laboriously up the hill of anonymity and get their point across, eventually, against such an editor. So, if you're not going to do it the easy way and get an account, you can instead put links to plenty of sources which exceptionally easy to check, such as official documents on govermental Web sites.

Pictures have additional problems. I mostly take outdoor photos, mostly of buildings. To upload them I merely need an account. Photos of paintings, statues and other art work are "derivative works" and subject to the copyright of the orignal work. The resulting legal problems may make publication in Wikipedia impractical, except where the item clearly falls into one of the exceptions to copyright. A few of the murals or other paintings from the 1930s fall into one of the exceptions, but not most.

Mostly I avoid controversy, losing a fight by default and going on to non controversial Wikipedia matters. But if you decide you are right and think victory is worth the effort it will cost you, by all means go ahead and prove your point, by easy methods or hard. Jim.henderson (talk) 03:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The paintings in the post office were done by people employed by the US government's Works Progress Administration, so they should be public domain as US government products. --Orlady (talk) 06:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the reason why I have contended (in discussion regarding a now-deleted version of this article) that these are oil paintings and not murals is that the single most reliable source about the artwork (source originally supplied by a Jvolkblum sockpuppet) says they are "oil on canvas." See EXTANT MURALS & SCULPTURES FROM THE GOVERNMENT ART PROJECTS OF THE 1930s IN NEW YORK on Syracuse Unviersity website. Also see http://www.wpamurals.com/newyork.htm. --Orlady (talk) 06:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, we do learn things as editors. Last week I knew next to nothing about Federal Art Project or murals and now know thrice as much. What I already knew about the program of public painting was, it produced mostly oil paintings on canvas stuck on the wall as murals, that is marouflage, and was done by artists under commission, that is contractors retaining copyright, rather than by employees not retaining copyright. And yes, most of what I know about everthing is unsourceable and a lot of it ain't so, and it's difficult to sort it all out. So now we've got four questions; two technical and two legal.

First technical question, mural, we've got an online New York Times article and a Westchester County document saying yes, though neither document is focused on this question. Second technical question, oil on canvas, we've got a lab.syr.edu survey saying yes. This survey item, combined with information in its header, can also be interpreted as denying that it's a mural, but to my mind it doesn't really seem intended to answer the mural question. The oil on canvas question may require an expert eye, but the mural question is so easy even someone as ignorant as me could determine it with a casual inspection. Surely I have not yet answered these two questions definitively, but have I at least sorted them correctly?

First legal question is contractor (artist on commission) or employee, and second is copyright or public domain. My feeling is these are the same question, but I know better than to rely on my feelings for legal opinions.

Unfortunately your wpamurals.com link does not connect for me, so I do not know whether it would help with any of these four questions. Absent further sources, I am inclined to suspect it an error to delete material from the article about the presence of large oil on canvas murals. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the problem with the wpamurals link in my earlier message (oops!). See http://www.wpamurals.com/newyork.htm .
I have long familiarity with WPA murals and other WPA art, but you have taught me about marouflage. That information helps to reconcile the sources that say these are oil paintings on canvas with the sources that say they are murals. Did you find a source that identifies them as marouflage?
Please note that the primary reason for deleting material from this article has been that the content was added by a user who has been banned for flagrant abuse. See the user page, the sockpuppetry cases cited there, and the checkuser history for additional insight. Please don't encourage this user by engaging in an extended interaction or by letting them think that you will help them evade the ban. Also be aware that many of this user's past contributions have been plagiarized, including text added to this article. --Orlady (talk) 06:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I suppose this all may be true; the anonymous contributor denies such an identification but I see no way to determine. On the other hand editors may persist in anonymity for mysterious good reasons as well as the obvious bad ones. Anyway despite the namelessness of the contributor, the material deleted earlier this month seems relevant, properly sourced and otherwise appropriate to our encyclopic purpose, and I recommend restoring it.

No, the technical term "marouflage" is much less common (in English) than the practice; usually what gets mentioned is the material that goes into the mural, and the result, and that's what I get with my Web searches for this and almost all paint on canvas murals. Even the Wiki "mural" article barely mentions either the term or the method, perhaps because the method became less common late in the 20th century.

The specific technical article may be difficult to find if you don't do a search on "canvas mural" or other search terms you will think of if you already know something about the method. What little I know about the method, I mostly learned last week from my 1943 Britannica, which has a much better "Mural Painting" article than Wikipedia's. Rather, the Britannica article is shorter yet more thorough, but also unfortunately more opinionated and of course somewhat out of date. Too bad I can't just type it into Wikipedia and let the usual editorial process correct its deficiencies. Please check the deleted material again and restore it if I am right about its merits. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

My recollection (which could easily be wrong; I've seen hundreds of edits by this person) is that the deleted material was copied verbatim from a source that was (conveniently) not cited. It also may have included a street address for the post office that is inconsistent with what all the sources state. Anything that's restored needs to be checked for verifiability and written in the contributor's own words. --Orlady (talk) 02:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The only street address I see in the deleted text of Dec 9 is 255 North Avenue, which agrees with the municipal site. Quick Google searches with snippets of the deleted text turn up no evidence that it was pasted in the most obvious way from another site. Of course this does not prove the material was written in the contributor's own words and not stolen in some more clever way. Such a standard is more easily demanded than met for almost any text, including my words here. Jim.henderson (talk) 04:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding addresses, earlier some of the open-proxy IPs and batch-created sockpuppets claimed that the post office was on the Boston Post Road. I'm glad the current version is correct. As for sources, one source that this person has plagiarized at various times is http://www.newrochelledowntown.com/pages/BIDHistWlkTrBro_092006.pdf . Long history indicates that this user doesn't produce original content, except perhaps for the lies s/he tells. Several good sources exist regarding this post office, so it should not be hard to write something new based on reliable sources. --Orlady (talk) 06:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's important to identify correctly. I failed to make clear that I was discussing the reversion of Dec 9. The general remarks you have made about what someone did at various times in the more distant past are no doubt true for those various times and persons. I merely fail to see their relevance to the Dec 9 deletion. That material, far as I see, fulfills the purposes for which you propose to write something new. It cites reliable sources, and no evidence has been presented for its being a pack of lies or plagiarized or presented by a banned user. Not that I wish to discourage you from writing your own and better presentation on the subject one of these days, but meanwhile the material that was deleted on December 9 appears to be good and ought to be restored. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I found my way here again by happy accident, and noticed that I failed to mention something. When I visited last year and made the picture, I got there by pedalling up Boston Post Road on my way to Connecticut, and thought the Post Office was on that road. It's an easy enough mistake, since Hugenot uses the former route of BPR. At some time, probably before the Post Office was built, BPR was relocated to the east. Other parts of BPR were similarly straightened, easily confusing minds like mine that sometimes can't quite get used to the bolder engineering of the 19th century and automatically assume the kind of timorous routing customary in Franklin's time. Thus, the earlier claim was not so much plain wrong, as anachronistic. Heck, it's possible I'm wrong about the timing and the PO was actually built on BPR. Jim.henderson (talk) 06:37, 19 February 2009 (UTC)