It's 1940. Only movie theaters have screens. You're an immigrant child on New York City's Lower East Side, sick with pneumonia and you're feeling lonely. If you've been admitted to Gouverneur Hospital, you're in luck.
Murals painted by Abram August Champanier for the Works Progress Administration as part of the New Deal have just been unveiled in your horseshoe-shaped ward, designed to deter the spread of germs. A visitor has arrived from overseas and Fabzio, a toymaker wearing a hat made of letter blocks, will serve as her guide. Best of all, Alice has invited you to tag along.
"Come Alice!" said Fabzio "I'll show you another wonderland--New York." "Oh jolly. We'd love to see it!"
Champanier's son has said the mural's storyline was inspired by an actual tourist: the young girl after whom Lewis Carroll had modeled Alice in the 19th century visited New York as an octogenarian in the 20th, an event heralded by many of the of the city's multiple dailies.
Everyone was in high spirits as they were headed to the open sea and a fishing trip for Marlin. They piled pel-mell onto the subway and squeezed into the crowded train.
Alice and her pals tour some of the city's iconic landmarks in a series of 16 panels, ten feet tall, appropriately enough. Champanier himself had arrived at Ellis Island in 1905 as Abram Sherschewitz, a nine-year old Jewish boy from Poland (then part of Russia) with his parents. After settling in New Jersey they opened a convenience store that carried champagne and Frenchified a last name to sound as fancy as as the bubbly beverage. Imagination obviously ran in the family.
And so they hopped on a plane. And heading down the East River, they came upon the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges and were spellbound by the wonder of it all.
Unfortunately, Gouverneur, which lost its accreditation in 1961, fell on hard times. By 1978, the building had been abandoned but three years later a renegade group of art lovers without formal authorization retrieved the murals prior to demolition and eventually restored them. This one was so damaged it required re-recreation.
"It's a Whale!" cried the Queen. "It's a Swordfish!" shouted the Mad Hatter. "Umph." said Fabio. "It's a sardine!"
The Empire State Building had scraped the sky for the first time just a decade earlier, although some of the kids no doubt already had seen King Kong climb it before their confinement at Gouverneur.
As the clouds dispersed, a skyscraper loomed out of the mists. Far below lay the city, steeped in weird shadow.
"Out of my way!" shouted the Queen to Alice. "Gapuff" grunted the Mad Hatter. "What's all the noise?! Let's stop this scallywaggerpuffin' and enjoy Coney Island!" cried Fabzio.
After their rescue, exhibition of the murals was piecemeal until a mix of private and city funding made it possible to restore them to their full glory. A temporary installation at the Museum of the City of New York enables visitors to experience them almost like the children at Gouverneur once did, minus the illness.
"Would you tell me please," said Alice, a little timidly," what is that figure down below?" "That the Statue of Liberty and Bedlee's (sic) Island," said Fabzio. "How lovely!" said Alice.
Lady Liberty had been destroyed, too. The conservators chose not to "antique" their re-creations. The Red Queen sounds pretty orange if you catch my drift.
"Off with her head!" shouted the Queen, "then we can proceed with croquet!" "But," said the King, "there is hardly room for marbles."
Champanier's longest mural stretches 22 feet, depicting an animal concert that substitutes word play for notes (and accuracy: Haydn never composed a "Joy Symphony"). Robert Moses, also using W.P.A. funds, had renovated the location six years before.
That night they met by at the Central Park Zoo. One by one they bowed before the Queen. The cat brought a fiddle, the canary a viola, the rabbit his bull fiddle, the Mad Hatter an accordion, the Dodo a banjo, the Robot a bass drum, the mule a saxophone, Bobo a trap drum, Toto his fife, Tojo the french horn and Koko a flute. When they were seated Fabzio picked up the baton and conducted Haydn's Joy Symphony to everyone's delight. "Bravo!" howled the Queen.
Alice straddling Fortitude in front of the New York Public Library made me wonder if Champanier had sought permission from Lewis Carroll's estate to use what we now call his intellectual property. According to AI, he didn't have to: under British law, Carroll's copyright expired in 1907.
"Why is a lion like a mouse?" asked the Mad Hatter. "Oh!" moaned the Mock Turtle. "Because it isn't a mouse!" laughed Alice. The Lion roard and said: "It is very rude to make personal remarks."
When Champanier painted the penultimate panel, the SS Normandie, a French ocean liner, was the fastest passenger ship afloat. Two years after she sailed into the Gouverneur's children's ward, the U.S. Navy seized the ship, with the intention to transport troops. Instead, the newly renamed USS Lafayette caught fire and sank in the Hudson.
And there goes a sailboat headed across the bay.
The good ship NORMANDIE warped out of the dock by tugboats, gets under weigh (words missing).
A trim little yacht goes speeding past the pier.
"Bon Voyage" shouted Alice, Fabzio and the rest of the mad, gay party, and a safe Return. "
Look at that sailboat go spanking in the breeze.
After an eventful day the whole merry kit and kaboodle returned to their books.
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| Self-Portrait (1918) |
