1940s Hospital Mural for Sick Kids Rescued After 40 Years

When a hospital for children in Manhattan was torn down in 1981, a team of conservators raced against bulldozers to save something extraordinary hidden inside.

Artist Abram Champanier had painted 16 towering panels showing Alice, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter exploring New York City. The 1940 mural transformed a children's ward at Gouverneur Hospital into a wonderland where young patients could imagine themselves flying over the Empire State Building and riding crowded subway cars.

The Federal Art Project, a Depression-era program that also funded Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, commissioned Champanier's work in 1935. He spent three years creating the seven-foot-tall panels in his unique "Staccatoism" style, blending vivid colors with whimsical scenes of storybook characters crashing through the city.

The murals were literally glued to the walls with lead paste. When the hospital lost accreditation in 1961 and was abandoned by 1978, the artwork seemed destined for destruction.

Architectural historian Andrew Dolkart discovered the forgotten paintings in the crumbling building. "The room was a ruin," he recalls, but the panels were "witty and fun and bright" and clearly worth saving.

Conservators Alan and Denise Farancz extracted the murals as wrecking crews demolished the hospital around them. What followed was a 40-year labor of love as multiple restoration teams slowly cleaned and preserved each panel.

Two lost scenes showing a fishing boat and the Statue of Liberty were carefully recreated by restorers John Lippert and Dawn D'Aluisio in 2008. Now all 16 panels are finally ready for public display.

The Ripple Effect

This mural represents more than rescued art. It's the only surviving Works Progress Administration commission for a children's hospital ward, proof of a time when federal funding brought beauty and healing to unexpected places.

The artwork was designed before television or video games, offering sick children something to spark their imagination during long hospital stays. Museum curator Lilly Tuttle says it shows "what federal funding for the arts could do for cities like New York."

The exhibition "Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier's Alice Mural" opens June 6 at the Museum of the City of New York. After the show closes in September, the panels will return to their original purpose at a nursing facility on the Lower East Side.

Four decades of careful work have brought these murals back from the edge of oblivion to inspire a new generation.