Art that redefines what it means to be a lobbyist

Each time I enter Grand Central Terminal, I instinctively look up at the constellations on the ceiling . They take me back to my childhood — feeling small, staring into possibility, and being absolutely and unmistakably nowhere else.

In a less spectacular way — but no less personal — I feel something similar when I enter the lobbies of Seward Park Housing Cooperative .

The history of Seward Park — its roots in organized labor and collectivist civic ethos — is reflected most clearly in the distinctive murals displayed in the lobbies of its four buildings . Painted in 1959 by Hugo Gellert, the murals are enduring artifacts of the political, intellectual, and cultural life of the Lower East Side . At a time when most of Gellert’s public murals have been destroyed, their presence at Seward Park stands as a rare and significant survival .

Who was Hugo Gellert?
Hugo Gellert was born in Hungary in 1892 and immigrated to the United States in 1906. He emerged as a prominent American artist in the 1930s, known equally for his visual work and his outspoken leftist politics . Gellert rejected any separation between art and political life, insisting that artistic practice and political action were inseparable .

During his career, Gellert produced murals for the 1939 New York World’s Fair , created work for a theater in Rockefeller Center, painted a cafeteria near Union Square , and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art . He also illustrated the cover of the first issue of New Masses, a leading left-wing journal of the era. Despite his prominence during the 1930s and 1940s, Gellert’s reputation diminished after World War II, and his work has since been largely forgotten during the modern era .

Gellert played a formative role in shaping the political infrastructure of American art . He helped organize the Artists’ Committee for Action and the Artists’ Union, organizations that were instrumental in advancing federally funded art programs under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) . He also served on the editorial committee of Art Front, the Artists’ Union’s publication. Gellert died in 1985.

The Murals at Seward
Seward Park Cooperative comprises four 20-story buildings . Their construction began in 1959 under the sponsorship of the United Housing Foundation, a federation of cooperative housing societies, labor unions, and nonprofit organizations committed to affordable housing .

Seward Park followed earlier union-sponsored developments in the area, including Hillman Houses (1950), Amalgamated Dwellings (1930), and the East River Housing Corporation (1956) . Together, these developments have long been referred to as “Co-op Village.” I like to call them Shangri-La .

For more than three decades, Seward Park operated as a limited-equity cooperative, receiving tax subsidies in exchange for maintaining below-market apartment prices . In 1995, shareholders approved a Plan of Reconstitution converting the cooperative to full equity, with price caps phased out over five years . Apartments now sell at market rates. The cooperative marked its 50th anniversary in 2010, and it’s about to enter a new era as further improvements are on the horizon . (More on that in an upcoming edition.)

Gellert’s work at Seward was commissioned in 1959 by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union . They were conceived as a culminating artistic statement for a union-sponsored, working-class housing development: it’s no wonder they selected Gellert. Who, in his time, could have been a more appropriate, ideologically-aligned artist?

Each mural centers on a widely recognized American figure : Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Albert Einstein. Unlike his earlier work, the murals avoid overt caricature or revolutionary iconography. Instead, they express a vision of American democratic ideals . Jefferson is shown alongside imagery drawn from the Declaration of Independence . Lincoln appears with abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown, and scenes of interracial harmony . Roosevelt’s mural reflects the values and aspirations of the New Deal era. Einstein is depicted both as a symbol of scientific achievement and as a refugee from Nazi Germany , representing the United States as a place of asylum and resistance to fascism .

Since their installation, the murals have faced threats of removal . Proposals to destroy or cover them emerged in 1989, again during Seward Park’s 1996 conversion to a private cooperative, and in subsequent modernization efforts . Objections cited aesthetics, perceived political content, and changing expectations for the lobbies.

Each time, though, they were preserved , and they now stand among the most important surviving examples of Hugo Gellert’s work .

Here are some of the sources I reviewed for this piece: Forward; NY Times; CityLore; Smithsonian Institution; Seward Park Cooperative.