Cooper Murals face looming Mamaroneck deadline

Backers set up GoFundMe page

Time is running out on the James Fenimore Cooper murals hanging on the walls of a Westchester County high school, but the county’s Historical Society has pushed its effort to rescue the paintings into high gear as an April 1 deadline draws near.

The Society’s past president, Carol Akin – a summertime Cooperstown resident – said Mamaroneck High School granted a two-week delay on construction originally slated to begin March 15. Now they’re rushing to raise the $175,000 necessary to save the murals through a GoFundMe page and a public relations push to keep awareness and interest at a peak throughout the month of March.

“We raised $21,000 in the first week,” Mrs. Akin told The Freeman’s Journal / Hometown Oneonta. “It’s helpful, but at that rate, we aren’t going to make it.”

The Freeman’s Journal / Hometown Oneonta first reported on the mural standoff several weeks ago as word spread of the high school’s plan to cover – and in some cases, destroy – eight Depression-era murals depicting scenes from James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels. The murals stand in the way of the Mamaroneck High School’s plans to build new computer learning labs.

“Two or three of the murals would be destroyed in the reconstruction,” Mrs. Akin said. “The rest will be covered up. We think we have enough places around the area to hang the murals, it’s just a big and expensive job to take them down and relocate them.”

She said the murals today are framed and glued firmly to the wall, necessitating lead abatement and other costly procedures, including transporting and storing the artwork. The Society’s website says “(t)his massive installation of public art has been seen by thousands of students over the past 81 years. The murals communicate to students their connection to literature, art, to the history of our county, and to pride in their hometown.”

Cooper scholars point to his life in Mamaroneck as husband to Susan DeLancey as having an important impact on his novels and writing, building the Cooperstown connection.

For Mrs. Akin, it’s not the first time she has had to fight to save remnants of downstate’s Cooper history. She first joined the Historical Society, she said, after working on fundraisers to save the DeLancey-Cooper House in Mamaroneck several years earlier.

“I came to the realization of how we have to fight hard to save history in the face of progress,” she said. “That connection to our past is so important.”

The Society’s website – www.mamaroneckhistoricalsociety.org – includes in-depth information about the Cooper mural project and links to its GoFundMe page.