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December 08, 2008
Another View
I am home now. It is sunny, but it is also 27 degrees.
Let us not speak of it.
On Saturday, I went back to Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower. I seem to find the parrots endlessly amusing, and I wanted to try the staircase I hadn’t the first time I was there. (I walked the Greenwich stairs on Friday, the Filbert on Saturday.) The walk and the views are an antidote to the monochromatic winter we’ve settled into here in WNY; if I had been there another day, I might have gone back again.
I also kind of fell in love with the WPA murals in the tower. The murals are worth spending time with, full of activity and detail, and it’s moving to stand in the midst of a financial crisis mulling over the way our country decided that one good way to deal with a past crisis was to put artists to work. We aren’t that country anymore, and those murals tell a story about why that’s a shame.
On Saturday, I also rode the F train and did some shopping and spent some quality time at City Lights bookstore. I walked a lot.
Today, I am doing laundry. Sigh. Let us not speak of it.
Posted by adrienne at December 8, 2008 03:06 PM
Comments
I, too, think the "employ artists" thing would be a really good idea -- here's hoping that there's still a possibility of that.
It was lovely reading you wandering through familiar places. Although WHY you couldn't have been there when *I* was still remains unanswered! Ahem.
Enjoy the...sun. If not that other unspeakable thing.
Posted by: TadMack at December 9, 2008 04:40 AM
Ms A., Were any of those WPA murals done by Thomas Hart Benton?
Posted by: Heidi at December 9, 2008 04:57 AM
TadMack, You have to talk to the people who hired me. If they would pay me to be there when you were there, I'd be there. :) Of course, I'll be flying into SF again in about four or five weeks. I'll be spending A LOT of time in CA over the next few months.
Heidi, I have no memory of the artists' names, but I tried Googling and it looks like he has work in SF but not in the tower. I could have missed something, though. It's totally not my area of expertise.
Posted by: adrienne at December 9, 2008 11:23 AM
I'm going to appeal to the collective here to set me straight. Adrienne, you reference "WPA murals" in your post. I've been working on a tourism brochure about the Rundel Memorial Building, which is full of artwork from the same period. However, I have found multiple references to this artwork as PWA *and* WPA. Which is it???
Posted by: Patty at December 9, 2008 11:36 AM
There were lots of initial groups,Patty.So,maybe your best bet would be to ask someone in the local history section at Rundel(which is a great building!) :)
Posted by: momster at December 9, 2008 03:22 PM
Hm, I have to confess I have no idea. Until I visited San Francisco, I knew this project as "that thing where they put the artists to work during the Depression." They used WPA pretty consistently in the info at Coit Tower, but maybe Momster's on to something with the multiple agencies thing. I'll ask Tammy about it; she's a social studies teacher.
Posted by: adrienne at December 9, 2008 10:00 PM
The Public Works Administration(PWA) was for housing projects--buildings.The Works Progress Administration(WPA)eventually set up the Federal Arts Project--which remained under the WPA,to promote art.The WPA was set up to help folks get work.I hope this helps:)
Posted by: momster at December 10, 2008 03:07 PM