Geneva, IL — The historic New Deal Era Mural, Fish Fry in the Park, located at the Geneva Post Office, , will be temporarily removed for restoration this Saturday, January 8.

The Postal Service has awarded a contract to PARMA Conservation, Ltd. a Chicago-based specialist in restoration and recovery of historic artwork.  Parma has been restoring historic Post Office murals for more than ten years, including the mural at the Lakeview Station in Chicago, the Melrose Park Public Library and the Downers Grove Post Office. 

“This restoration is a benefit to the community,” said U.S. Postal Service Northern Illinois District Manager, Robert Hart.  “The Postal Service makes every effort to preserve and safeguard the art in our buildings for future generations.”

The mural at the Geneva Post Office, located at 26 South 3rd Street, was painted by artist Manuel Bromberg in 1940.  It will be remounted when the restoration is completed.

The Postal Service is the custodian of the largest public art collection owned by any federal agency, and currently houses more than 1,200 murals and 200 sculptures in Post Offices nationwide. 

The artwork was created from 1934-1943 during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative and was intended to help boost the morale of people during the Great Depression.

# # #

Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/welcome.htm.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.