Sound Shore

Perhaps you’ve spent some time waiting in line at the Port Chester post office, contemplating the beautiful WPA murals overhead, within a set of arches. What exactly do they represent, you ask?

A local ESL class, made up of students from Peru, Ecuador, Japan, Guatemala and elsewhere, has done the research for you. They’ve prepared a community brochure explaining each painting. Here is Manny Romero, an Ecuadorian student, holding the brochure at his workplace, the kitchen at Rosie’s on the River:

As I wrote in my story today on LoHud.com, the students were fascinated by the depiction of Port Chester’s working people — strong and muscular, drawn in the familiar style of Depression-era murals funded by the Works Progress Administration. As working people themselves, the students wrote their own observations about the images of factory employees, dock workers, a mail carrier and teacher.

The paintings are full of curiosities. What looked to me like a bakery is in fact the old Life Savers factory, teacher Camille Linen told me. Those are packages of candy, not loaves of bread, apparently.

Another mural shows a teacher spinning a globe with dirty hands. Linen said an elderly retired teacher explained why: back in the day, teachers used to stoke the fires from a wood-burning stove in each classroom.

A mail carrier blows his whistle to alert the people on his route.

And here’s the detail from a mural of dock workers unloading cargo — perhaps the quintessential image of Port Chester’s history.

The brochures were printed through a donation from Mayor Dennis Pilla and will be circulated around town.

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