PLANS TO REMOVE OLD MURALS RAISE CONCERNS
RHINEBECK, N.Y. » Town Supervisor Elizabeth Spinzia plans to seek help from members of Congress to save the 80-yearold murals in the Rhinebeck Post Office.
Spinzia said Wednesday that it’s unclear why postal officials at the federal level want to remove or hide the works done by local artist Olin Dows (19041981) for a postal facility that was constructed with design input from President Franklin Roosevelt.
“I spoke with the supervisor for the Rhinebeck [post] office,” Spinzia said. “They are referring me to someone in [at the regional Postal Service hub in] White Plains because they have been informed by White Plains [that the murals] are coming down or being covered up. We do not know why.”
George Flood, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service’s Northeast Area, said the Rhine
beck murals are slated for removal as a result of complaints, though he did not say how many were received or what they were about.
The murals — comprising 12 panels that cover the upper portions of all the walls in the building — include images of laborers that have been interpreted to be slaves. In one scene, two Black men are seen stooped over and carrying heavy bags to a waiting boat; another shows a Black man working at an outdoor wood stove; and a third shows what appears to be a young Black person kneeling over harvested crops.
The murals also have depictions of Native Americans appearing to be less cultured than the Europeans that took over the land. Women are shown topless and tending to children, while men sit cross-legged in front of fully clothed settlers who are handing over a cup.
Flood said a group of Postal Service staffers in Washington, D.C., will be involved in deciding how the art in Rhinebeck will be handled.
“They are going to evaluate the piece and make a decision [on] what is the appropriate action,” he said.
Flood noted, however, that “a timeline for the murals in Rhinebeck has not been established. They have not even met on it, yet.”
He said residents who want to offer input should write to the Rhinebeck postmaster.
The murals depict Dows’ interpretation of local history from the early 1600s to the 1930s. Included are depictions of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon anchored off Rhinecliff in 1609; the 1716 union of Calvinists and Lutherans; the 1728 house owned by Henry Beekman that was used as a model for the post office; skating on Asher’s Pond in 1730; a 1790 Dutch Reformed Church service; the Clermont sailing to Tivoli in 1807; and 1865 winter scene; a 1920 Decoration Day parade; and a milk truck, violet houses and people listening to the radio in 1939.
Other controversies
The possible removal of the Rhinebeck Post Office murals comes just three months after an outdoor mural in the village of Red Hook that some saw as depicting slavery was painted over.
The Red Hook mural sparked controversy in the days following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of white police officers in Minneapolis. Many in the Northern Dutchess community said the mural celebrated racism by depicting what they said was a Black slave working in the fields. A petition calling for the mural’s removal garnered hundreds of signatures.
One of the two people who created the mural said it was misinterpreted, and that the person perceived to be a slave was, in fact, a Dutch woman pushing a wheelbarrow filled with apples.
Also this past summer, the Rhinebeck Town Board voted to replace a historical marker on U.S. Route 9 that honored slavery advocate John A. Quitman.
Quitman was born in Rhinebeck but later moved to Mississippi, married into the family of the state’s largest slaveholder married and led a campaign that ultimately resulted in the Confederacy.