WASHINGTON − Mary Okin has never walked along the green marble hallways of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building.
She's never seen the irreplaceable series of murals by prominent American artists that hang inside as a testament to the New Deal in a building once intended to house the Social Security Administration.
But Okin, a California-based art historian and assistant director of online public archive Living New Deal, is the "grand central station" of a growing effort to block PresidentDonald Trumpfrom selling the Cohen building.
The 1 million-square-foot structure, which the federal government built in 1940 near the National Mall, is one of more than 40 on Trump's list for expeditious sale.
The General Services Administration, an independent agency established in 1949 that manages hundreds of federal properties nationwide, has protocols to maintain ownership of taxpayer-owned art that cannot be removed when the government sells a federal building. But Okin and her coalition of advocates, art historians and members of Congress worry the Trump administration will ignore these and destroy a piece of America's heritage that cannot be replaced.
Okin said she first became alarmed in March 2025, when the Trump administrationcut 3,000 GSA jobs− including two-thirds of the agency's fine arts and historic preservation staff. The 11 remaining people are in charge of managing and inspecting the more than 26,000 pieces in the collection, which is one of the oldest and largest public art collections in the nation.
Of the 26,000 pieces, including paintings, textiles and sculptures, museums hold most on loan. The remainder are displayed in federal buildings nationwide. Much of the collection is New Deal era-art that the federal government funded.
"I became very concerned about what is gonna happen to all these objects," she told USA TODAY. "They're worth a lot of money. They're also just ours."
Okin tried to raise the alarm about the potential threats to the New Deal art inside the federal buildings but grew dismayed when few art historians joined her cause. The organization she works for, Living New Deal, aims to document the lasting impacts of the New Deal on Americans lives. It doesn't have a history of advocacy or lawsuits.
Then, Trumpknocked down the White House's East Wingto make way for a new ballroom. He released plans to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building's historic granite facade. Then, he announced plans toshutter the Kennedy Center for two yearswhile workers carry out major renovations.
Voices quickly rose to join Okin.
Social Security Works
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan named the building after Cohen, a long-time civil servant who was a key architect in the creation and expansion of the American social safety net, including both the New Deal and Great Society programs under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Cohen, who died in 1987, was also a mentor to Nancy Altman, president of political advocacy group Social Security Works, which aims to expand Social Security access. She told the group's executive director Alex Lawson to figure out if their members would care about the art in the building. The response was overwhelming, he said.
Watching the East Wing's destruction was a watershed moment for a lot of people, Lawson said.
"We watched President Trump break every single law that we would be using to protect the Cohen building," Lawson said.
Social Security Works sees selling the building and a new owner possibly destroying the murals as an attack on Social Security, he said.
"We are adamant that we will not let them erase the story of Social Security," Lawson said.
He said he also realized that Okin's knowledge and connections in the art conservation world combined with his experience and connections on Capitol Hill and in advocacy would make a formidable team.
"I bring rowdy activists," Lawson said. "I have people that if they were to try to bring bulldozers in like they did (with) the East Wing, we'll block the bulldozers, We'll protest to block the bulldozers."
Before Sept. 11, 2001, the Cohen Building was open to the public just like most federal buildings. Now, federal employees and the occasional art tour group are the only ones who pass the murals throughout the day.
On one side of the Cohen building's main hallway, a mural shows an elderly women holding crutches amid collapsing buildings. Others depict a father and son wandering along railway tracks, a young boy limping past a child collapsed in the street and men waiting for work.
On the other side, a mural shows men welding girders on a new building, picking crops and framing new walls, some even signing up for Social Security. All of the murals make up a single piece titled "The Meaning of Social Security", created by Ben Shahn in 1942 and made from egg tempura on dry plaster.
In the building's original entryway are two frescos on wet plaster by Seymour Fogel from 1942. On the right hand side is "Security of the People"showing a family at leisure. On the left hand side is "Wealth of the Nation," which shows economic successes needed to pull the country out of the Great Depression.
Both artists specialized in social realist art, focused on the hardships of American life, and were involved in several of the government art programs that employed artists during the Great Depression. They had successful, prominent careers with works featured in major American art museums.
Shahn is also known for his photography and left-wing politics. Fogel was a pioneer of modern and abstract art.
The Fogel and Shahn pieces are chemically bonded to the building's walls and cannot easily be removed.
The building is also home to four sculptures and two oil on canvas paintings. In the facility's main auditorium,a three-panelpiece by Philip Guston in 1943 titled "Reconstruction and the Wellbeing of the Family" fills the stage. It would be the easiest of the large murals to move because it is adhered to wood panels.
"It's such a beautiful idea that you create a kind of palace for Social Security, for working class people, and that you care enough to decorate it with art on the presumption that civil servants are going to be dedicated to creating the social safety net," Okin said.
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Push and pull
During the Biden administration, the General Services Administration determined it would take at least $500 million to completely modernize the Cohen Building with new electrical systems, windows and insulation, said former GSA asset manager Jonathan Stern, whose portfolio included the Cohen Building. It also looked at how to restore the building to full capacity of over 4,000 federal workers and make the building essentially energy neutral, he said.
It's unlikely Congress would spend that much money when it could sell it off to a private company to do the renovations, he said. He expects it to be sold.
"I don't know how this building will ever realistically be put back into service," Stern said. The study, which he said was 95% done, has not been publicly released.
Right before Biden left office, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, inserted a requirement in a water bill to have the General Services Administration sell off the Cohen building once it has been empty for two years.
Even though it was intended to hold the Social Security Administration, by the time the building was completed World War II had begun and the space was taken over by the War Department. Several agencies have inhabited it since.
The building is currently home to the U.S. Agency for Global Media and Voice of America, which was in the process of moving out when most of the staff was put of furlough last year. The administration ended the lease for the new space, but a judge has recently ordered VOA to restore all of the staff. It is unclear where they will work out of.
Ernst has focused for years on convincing GSA to sell off empty or underutilized federal buildings.
Ernst said in a statement that she singled out the Cohen building for sale because so few people work there.
"It speaks volumes that only 2% of the folks who were actually paid to work at the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building were showing up to see its murals in person. Given that fact, let the property's buyer decide its artwork's fate. However, there should be no delay in taking this expensive waste monument off the taxpayers' dime," she said.
Her office added that the murals could go to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History or to the National Gallery of Art, both of which of located nearby.
Congress generally doesn't not mandate the sale of specific government buildings. Instead the General Services Administration decides what buildings or property to sell and when.
GSA spokesperson Marianne Copenhaver said in a statement that the agency will comply with the law.
"GSA has actively engaged art conservation professionals to assess the paintings and to develop a plan to protect them, should the government proceed with disposal of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building," Copenhaver said. "We are committed to working with property owners responsible for providing the care of any artwork involved in the sale or transfer of property."
All New Deal-era artwork paid for by taxpayers belongs to the federal government and cannot be sold. If New Deal art cannot be removed when a government building is sold then GSA retains ownership of the artwork and leases the building's art with historic preservation requirements in place.
Of the 454 murals in the GSA's fine arts collection, only three are at risk for sale on the accelerated disposition list. They are all in the Cohen building.
Congressional support
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, remembers walking by the Fogel and Shahn murals for the first time before the pandemic.
"The entire building is really a testament to the the relationship between workers and our government and the promise that was made with Social Security," Doggett told USA TODAY. "These murals tell something about the struggle and the issues that led to Social Security being created and the benefit it's now provided to generations of Americans."
When he learned that the Cohen building was up for sale, he organized a tour of the murals for members of Congress, knowing that many might not have ever been inside the building before, even though it sits just blocks from the Capitol.
Doggett has asked the House Appropriations Committee to guarantee in a spending bill that the murals will be protected if the building is sold.
He is worried that the GSA protocols are too flexible to protect the art, or that the Trump administration won't allow GSA to follow them.
"I'm troubled that we're in an era right now with the Trump regime that the GSA could well be encouraged to put whatever profit they think they can get from the maximum price on this property over the preservation of this valuable art," he said.
He questioned why the government should sell a building it already owns in a central place among other federal buildings while it rents offices space in privately owned buildings in Washington, Maryland and Virginia.
Other congressional Democrats are worried the drop in GSA fine arts staff means the taxpayer-funded art collection isn't being properly managed. Several members have asked agency leaders to explain how the load is being handled by so few employees.
On March 11, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, senta letter to General Services Administration Administrator Ed Forstdemanding information about how the collection is being maintained, especially in cases where federal buildings containing art are up for sale.
"The Fine Arts Collection belongs to the American people, and it is imperative that GSA upholds its duty to preserve and protect these works for future generations," the letter states.
Several members of Congress toured the building with Doggett recently to get a sense of the art.
And on April 7, a year after she started drawing attention to their potential loss, Okin will get a chance to see the murals for herself while in Washington to speak with members of Congress.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:New Deal art in historic building faces sale threat by Trump admin