With your help, our petition has now surpassed 8,500 signatures! Together, we are calling on the government to commit to historic preservation and national attention is growing.

A recent article in The New York Times spotlights the Cohen Building's extraordinary artworks, underscoring what is at stake and asking institutions to speak out in defense of the Cohen Building: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/arts/design/wilbur-cohen-building-murals-guston-shahn.html

As momentum builds, we continue to organize free public events. Your presence at them sends a powerful message that the public is watching — and that we care.

📅 Our next event is "Preservation in Action: A Closer Look at the Cohen Building's Architecture and Art"
Tuesday, March 10 at 5PM PST / 8PM EST

Join expert speakers to learn how the Cohen Federal Building's architecture and art were conceived as an integrated whole, how they have been preserved since the 1940s, and what we can do to save them.

In this webinar, we will take a virtual tour of the site and explore the materials and ideas used to celebrate the meaning of Social Security — beginning with Charles Z. Klauder’s architectural design and moving through its rich ornamentation:

• Egyptian revival exterior and layout
• Hallways and elevator banks lined with Antique Vermont Verde marble
• Exterior granite relief sculptures by Henry Kreis and Emma L. Davis
• Magnificent mural paintings by Ben Shahn, Seymour Fogel, Philip Guston, and Ethel Magafan and Jenne Magafan

Esteemed speakers include:

Gray Brechin, PhD is an art historian and historical geographer; Founder and Project Scholar of Living New Deal; author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. A frequent radio and television commentator on the lost ethical language of New Deal public works.

Daniel Leckie is an architectural historian and preservationist; former staff member at the General Services Administration assigned to the Cohen Building; advisor to Living New Deal’s Save the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building campaign.

John P. Murphy, PhD is the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. Author of New Deal Art: Culture and Crisis in the Great Depression (2025), published by Thames & Hudson. Advisor to Living New Deal’s Save the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building campaign.

David Olin is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation and CEO and Chief of Conservation at Olin Conservation, Inc. His firm has provided conservation services for major American collections, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and currently serves as mural conservator for multiple federal institutions.

👉 Register now:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/preservation-in-action-tickets-1982885629295

❤️ Our advocacy depends on your support. If you are able, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to sustain our work protecting the Cohen Building’s murals and architecture, and to fund free public programs like this webinar. Every contribution — large or small — makes a real difference:
https://livingnewdeal.app.neoncrm.com/forms/13

We’ve built momentum together. Please show up and continue making your voices heard.

In solidarity,
Living New Deal Staff