Three DOGE-targeted buildings in Philly could be sold, leaving their historic art at risk: ‘It really will be a travesty’

Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed the sale of “non core” federal buildings all over the country, including three buildings in Philadelphia. This includes Old City’s Custom House, built in 1932 as a Depression-era workforce development project; the Mid-Atlantic Social Security Center, a 534,000-square-foot brick office building at Third and Spring Garden Streets; and a Veterans Affairs Department building. While the General Services Administration did not provide an exact address, it is most likely the building on Wissahickon Avenue.

“To be clear, just because an asset is on the list doesn’t mean it’s immediately for sale or for sale at all. However, we will consider compelling offers (in accordance with applicable laws and regulations) and do what’s best for the needs of the federal government and taxpayer,” said GSA’s Washington, DC Public Affairs Officer Stephanie Rodriguez.

While the “non-core” list has been scrubbed clean, with the GSA website saying another list is “coming soon,” the future of these buildings remains in flux. Along with the future of the GSA-owned artworks that are housed in them. The GSA owns 20,000+ artworks that are displayed in federal buildings across the country, while many pieces (including 23,854 New Deal artworks) from its collection are lent out to museums.

Earlier this month, half GSA’s fine arts and historic preservation’s approximately three dozen staff members, who would oversee its arts collection, “were abruptly put on leave pending their terminations” by the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported. At least five regional offices were shuttered, signaling an uncertain future not just for the artworks housed in the buildings deemed “non-core” but also for the GSA’s collection at large.

“I feel horrified by the prospect of this work being either sold off or destroyed, because it’s part of our cultural legacy and heritage as a country. It belongs to the citizens of the United States who paid for it with their tax dollars and through our federal government revenue, and capital budgets. It really will be a travesty to see this work broken up,” said Charlotte Cohen, executive director of Philadelphia’s Association for Public Art, who, from 2005-2015, served as GSA’s fine arts officer for the Northeast and Caribbean region.

When it comes to the art in buildings disposed of by the federal government, Rodriguez said, “the Fine Arts Program makes decisions regarding final disposition of artworks in disposed buildings on a case-by-case basis.”

Some of those actions, in general terms, may include:

But the layoffs have meant that the staff members who would make these case-by-case decisions have mostly been terminated. The remaining staff, understandably, is overworked and overextended.

“GSA has 11 regions across the country, and by cutting regional staff, they’re taking us out of the communities that we serve,” said a former GSA staffer on the condition of anonymity. Most of the GSA-owned art works, including the ones in the Philadelphia buildings, they said, is “site specific,” meaning they were created with the site in mind, often within the space itself — measured to fit into the space or installed with an assumption of permanence with an eye toward continued maintenance.

Any changes would have to be supervised by GSA arts and preservation staff vigilantly and undertaken by highly skilled professionals. “We’re really the boots on the ground. We go out and look at every single work of art every two years to know of any condition issues,” the former staffer said.

The insides of the building at 2nd and Chestnut streets are adorned with 31 mural panels created by the artist George Harding in 1938. The murals, mostly revolving around themes of seafaring and navigation, a nod to the “commerce and customs of the Port of Philadelphia,” per the GSA website. Harding drew nautical signals, clouds, phases of the moon, and his interpretation of the various activities of the Port of Philadelphia.

The murals were commissioned as part of the New Deal art program of the 1930s, which was aimed at providing artists with employment and, the GSA explains, “also allowed everyday Americans to enjoy artwork in their communities.” The art commissioned under the program, including Harding’s murals, Rodriguez said, is considered “historical materials” which prevents its sale or private ownership under 44 U.S.C Chapter 21.

“We are actively seeking placement for the artworks in museums, and when possible, GSA owned buildings,” Rodriguez said, while leases on such buildings continue to be canceled and reinstated by the Trump administration.

Murals, inlaid into walls, are hard to remove and the layoff of arts and preservation staff means that the people who’d know how best to move these pieces and know contractors with specific skills, are gone.

“We are involved in the planning phase for any major construction project that might affect a work of art to ensure that it is properly protected and or temporarily removed, if that’s warranted. We function as collections managers, curators, interpreters, registrars, contract managers, all rolled into one to ensure that we’re protecting these precious assets that are part of the country’s cultural heritage,” the former GSA staffer said.

The Abstract Expressionist painter, Al Held, worked for 21 months to complete the mural at the Mid-Atlantic Social Security Center: Order/Disorder/Ascension/Descension (1977) comprises two massive canvases each 90 feet wide and 13 feet high. The paintings are affixed to an aluminum honeycomb support (24 panels total), which are attached to the wall.

The mural, composed of large black and white geometric designs that appear to change positions and shape as the eye of the viewer moves, is the largest mural the artist painted. “It is my hope that the experience of walking through, into and around a space of this scale will also enrich the perceptions of the observer, projecting them into a state beyond the visual experience,” Held had said of the art, the GSA website notes. Held died in 2005.

Unlike the Harding murals, Held’s mural was commissioned through GSA’s Art in Architecture program. At the time of publishing, GSA was unable to provide details on how artworks commissioned under this program are protected.

“We weren’t specifically informed by anyone that the mural might be at risk,” said Daniel Belasco, executive director of the Al Held Foundation who added that Held’s initial sketches for the mural were transferred from the GSA collection to the Smithsonian, a few years ago. “So fortunately, a lot of GSA work, hopefully is safe at the Smithsonian, but for the mural itself,” said Belasco. “[But] we’re very concerned about the state of public art in the United States. And Al Held has an important early role in that.”

Order/Disorder/Ascension/Descension piece was commissioned with the Bicentennial in mind. It was unveiled in 1977 by Joane Mondale, wife of then Vice President Walter F. Mondale. “There has been a lot of talk in the current administration about improving the quality of life in this country,” Mondale said, as reported by The Inquirer on June 7 1977, “The arts, in all their manifestations, offer us the quality we so much desire.”

Cohen remembers the restoration of the panel during her tenure at GSA. “There were great pains taken to make sure that that mural was boxed and climate controlled and cared for. You cannot put a price tag on this work, because it was never intended to be sold,” she said.

Jersey City native sculptor Clyde Lynds created Sentinel in 1998 with concrete that was “specially aggregated to resemble granite,” the GSA website notes. The sculptures that depicts the American Bald Eagle and the American flag, lights up at night from the fiber optic threads embedded in the concrete. “It was conceived to work in the historic tradition of embellishing federal architecture with references to the nation’s symbolisms,” Lynds said.

At night, the Stars and Stripes pattern of the lights, Lynds said, “alternates to a depiction of the [Philadelphia] night sky on [July 4, 1776] the day of this country’s independence from a monarchy; a particularly important day in Philadelphia.”

“Some irony there,” he added.

If the sculpture was to be moved, which the artist thinks is possible, Lynds hopes it is “relocated to an equally thematic federal site. But if the building’s demise results in hardship for veterans I think it a sad, shameful commentary on the state of our country.”

Sam Gilliam’s 1998 sculpture Color of Medals, a colorful painting-sculpture hybrid, hangs on the building’s second floor atrium wall. Gilliam, who passed away in 2022, was a veteran and an Abstract artist who, with his assistants, pored through “drawers of old military medals” when determining the work’s shapes and colors.

“As an artist and veteran, Sam Gilliam understood the role that public art commissions play for their communities and this work is especially important since, as its title denotes, [Color of Medals] stands as a tribute and celebration of those who have served our country,” said Annie Gawlak (Gilliam), president of the Sam Gilliam Foundation, who was married to the artist.

Through the 1970s, Gilliam produced several Philadelphia-specific works, including the large-scale Seahorses (1975) that draped over the Philadelphia Museum of Art facade; and Philadelphia Soft (1977), a series of six linen and canvas works he created as one of The Fabric Workshop and Museum’s first Artists-in-Residence.

“It would be sad for Color of Medals to be separated from its mission. But if there’s no other option, then the Foundation will collaborate on moving it to a location where it continues to be accessible to our veterans and the public,” Gawlak said of the work that, like Sentinel, was also commissioned through GSA’s Art in Architecture program.

“What’s most important,” she said, “Is that … the veterans who live in greater-Philadelphia continue to have ready access to the services they need and be treated with the honor and respect they have earned.”