The mystery of the missing Central District post office mural has been solved — Now the work is to put it back where people can see it

The art was tracked down — to a USPS employee’s office

By Brenna Gauchat

For Central District residents who bought stamps or dropped off care packages at the post office on 23rd and Union, Terry Furchgott’s six panels depicting scenes of people sending and receiving mail was a welcoming and familiar sight.

Before this United States Postal Service location was demolished in 2019 to make room for the construction of the Midtown: Public Square mixed-use development, the paintings hung behind the post office’s main counter for more than two decades and were widely considered a warm reflection of the community.

In 2021, CHS reported on the ongoing search to find these paintings after customers quickly noticed the mural’s absence in the new E Union post office when it re-opened on a nearby block.

Seven years after the original post office closed, Furchgott’s work has finally been found and USPS is working with Central District community members to find a new home for the beloved art pieces.

The contract

Furchgott signed a contract for the mural’s commission in 1994 that listed its intended space as the (now demolished) E Union post office. Because this address no longer applies, it has become unclear where this mural is supposed to be and who decides where it will end up.

Janella Herron, a USPS public relations representative, told CHS they are now in the process of “evaluating the appropriate next steps for the mural.” According to Herron, the artwork’s future is being discussed but “no final decisions have been made” at this point.

For Amy Hagopian, a Central District community member who has been invested in this search from the beginning, this only feels like another step in their years-long journey to restoring these paintings.

“It just seems so disappointing to finally find them, we looked for them for five years,” Hagopian said. “To find them and then not get them hung is just unacceptable.”

Mary Pat DiLeva moved into the neighborhood in 1995, about a year after the mural was installed, and had always associated her post office visits with their vibrancy. When they first disappeared, she said the community was given conflicting information about where the paintings were being stored during the moving process.

Details on their whereabouts were difficult to confirm with little help from USPS management and local congresspeople. Outside of former District 3 city council member Kshama Sawant, who was committed to restoring USPS services to the community in 2020, they found few fellow advocates for their cause.

For several years, DiLeva and Hagopian only knew the mural had been moved. But where the panels were being stored and when they would return remained a mystery until this March when they visited the Columbia City Annex, a separate facility most often used when a main branch needs more space for services or storage.

To their surprise, they found all six paintings hanging in a USPS employee’s personal office.

USPS removed the mural from the office after their discovery, but DiLeva and Hagopian have not been able to schedule a meeting with a representative to discuss further plans. Because the new E Union location is smaller than the original, there are concerns there is not enough room to rehang the panels as the artist originally intended them to be displayed.

The new post office opened in September 2020 after a 20-month closure (Image: CHS)

The artist has a few ideas that might help.

“The height of the different heads, things go up and down and move your eye across. They were made to hang three and three in a certain order,” Furchgott said about how the original space played a role in how the mural was designed, suggesting framing smaller digital prints of the panels instead.

Furchgott said her greatest hope is that her mural just ends up in a space easily accessible to the community, even if that is not the E Union post office.

Her neighbors in the Central District had inspired the mural, the woman packing gifts and the man reading a letter in his Coast Guard uniform were her friends who agreed to pose for the paintings.The girls crowding around the mailbox were her children’s classmates at Garfield High School.

“It wasn’t saying everybody’s exactly the same, we all have something that’s wonderful, that adds to the community,” Furchgott said. “All those public art pieces had to do with diversity. It was so people, without having to go to a gallery or buy something, could see themselves in public places.”

“My main goal, whether it’s anybody else’s, is to have them hung in the neighborhood,” DiLeva said. “The people in those paintings lived in the neighborhood, I think they need to be in the vicinity.”

The E Union mural was one of Furchgott’s first public art pieces, but after working on larger projects like the 25 foot panels she designed for the Seattle Center in 1999 and 2001, she said she has had to accept her work’s natural life cycle.

“It’s public art, things happen,” the artist said.

But even as she knows her work will eventually “disappear or get destroyed”, Furchgott said she was amazed and happy the East Union mural has been found.

“It’s only because of [Amy] and Mary Pat that they were found,” Furchgott said about what she wants for the mural in the future. “I feel they have every right to make the decision.”

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