The following year, knowing I could rely on Russell Rainbolt’s expertise, I submitted a proposal to New York City’s General Services Administration to install a temporary mural on the scaffolding surrounding the Municipal Building during a major renovation. My proposal was simple – to create a portrait of the city through its public statuary — and I was awarded the commission. I suspect that the committee that selected the work thought the project unpolitical, but my research had shown me that public statuary was only political, a system of recognizing and rewarding the powerful, and the interests of the powerful. At that time, the only non-allegorical woman represented on the streets of New York was Golda Meir. The only African-Americans were supplicants at the feet of white abolitionists, or, in the case of the infamous equestrian statue of Teddy Roosevelt, half-naked retainers supporting the great man. In composing the mural, which wrapped around the entire building, I sought to bring attention to this by alternating close-up faces of those less seen with a seeming endless parade of the politicians striking rhetorical poses as if making public speeches. The work was in situ for approximately three years.