New Mexico New Deal Sites June 2019 - Photo #34 - Albuquerque Veterans Hospital

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Albuquerque NM 18 June 2019: The Albuquerque Veterans Administration Hospital, 1501 S. San Pedro SE, known today as the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center. The building shown (Building Number 1) was built in 1931 and opened its doors August 22, 1932; therefore it is not a New Deal construction[1]. The rest of buildings on the VA campus were built 1949 and later, and are not New Deal either. However, Building 1 contains New Deal art in the form of decorative ceiling wood carvings[2], shown in the following images.
References
  1. New Mexico VA Health Care System - Our History, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, albuquerque.va.gov, accessed 10 July 2019.
  2. Albuquerque Veterans' Hospital, New Deal Art Registry, newdealartregistry.org, accessed 10 July 2019: "Albuquerque Veterans' Hospital, Decorative Ceiling Wood Carving, Program: WPA Federal Art Project (WPA-FAP)".
  3. Kathryn A. Flynn, Public Art and Architecture in New Mexico 1933-1943: A guide to the New Deal Legacy, Sunstone Press (2012), p.29: "Building No.1 which currently houses the Psychology Department ... has unusually fine carved animal heads on the corbels which are at the ends of the ceiling vigas."