Located in Poughkeepsie's Post Office this mural, Charles Rosen's
View of the City of Poughkeepsie, Circa 1939 is one of five celebrating the city's history from 1692 to 1939. Rosen created it in 1940 as part of the Art of the New Deal - Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. FDR contributed to the design of the Post Office and its murals. The post office, with its distinctive cupola, appears at center left. At right is the
Mid-Hudson Bridge (now named for FDR), another project built under his leadership.
This photograph of the mural was taken by Ted Spiegel and stands in the
Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center at the
Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site.
The Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center opened at the
Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site on November 15, 2003. Archivist of the United States John Carlin formally dedicated the new Wallace Center and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winning author, historian, and frequent television commentator, delivered the keynote address on FDR's leadership.
The Center is a public-private project designed to serve students, teachers, and the visiting public at the
Roosevelt Presidential Library and the sites administered by the National Park Service in Hyde Park - the
Roosevelt Home, Eleanor Roosevelt's cottage (Val-Kill), FDR's Retirement Retreat, Top Cottage, and Vanderbilt Mansion.
Named in honor of the man who served as Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940) and Vice-President during Franklin Roosevelt's third term, the Henry A. Wallace Center offers visitors an array of new and expanded services designed to enhance their experiences in Hyde Park. For the more than 125,000 visitors to the Roosevelt Library and National Historic Site, the Center now provides for the first time a comprehensive introduction to the historic complex of Roosevelt properties.
The Wallace Center is operated by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, in an innovative partnership with the National Park Service. The private non-profit Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI) has been instrumental in raising private support for both the Wallace Center and Top Cottage which opened to the public in 2001. FERI will host an ambitious program of national and international scholarly conferences and public policy activities in the new Center. Federal funding for the project has been provided through both the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the National Park Service, with each agency securing $8 million in congressional appropriations. The Roosevelt Library and Museum is one of NARA's eleven presidential libraries. The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute raised $4 million for the construction.
