Former Postal worker Gunn Lee presents Longport Mayor Nicholas Russo with a painting of the now demolished Post Office.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
LONGPORT – True to the U.S. Postal Service’s current tagline, “We Deliver,” a retired letter carrier who worked delivering the mail in Longport for many years presented his award-winning painting of the now demolished Post Office on 27th Avenue to the borough.
Gunn Lee of Galloway Township “delivered” his painting to the borough during the Board of Commissioners April 17 meeting. The painting will hang in the Longport Historical Society Museum, which is located in the historic U.S. Coast Guard Station building next door to Borough Hall.
From left, Greg Kilar, Jeff Fusco, Commissioner Dan Lawler, Gunn Lee, Mayor Nicholas Russo and Commissioner Jim Leeds.
Arrangements for the donation were made by Lee’s former co-worker Jeff Fusco, who attended the presentation along with current Mail Carrier Greg Kilar, the president of the Branch 370 of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Lee’s wife Michele and Fusco’s wife Sandy also attended the presentation.
Fusco also provided the Historical Society with a brick he retrieved from the building when it was demolished in late March. The owner of the building, which was originally a gas station, cleared the building from the land to make the lot more saleable.
The painting, titled, “His Last Job on his Last Day,” pictures Lee’s former Supervisor John Schneider lowering the American flag at the front of the building on the day of Snyder’s retirement. Fusco said Schneider was so dedicated to his job that he went out on his last day at work to ceremoniously lower the flag.
“That so impressed Mr. Lee that he made that the subject of his painting,” Fusco said.
Lee submitted his 12- by 12-inch painting to a U.S. Postal Service contest that selected 12 pieces of artwork from submissions received from across America for the service’s 1995 calendar. The artworks selected for the calendar later went on a traveling exhibit in government buildings around the country, including at the FAA Technical Center in Egg Harbor Township.
From left Sandy and Jeff Fusco, Gunn and Michele Lee, and Greg Kilar.
Lee, a graduate of the Hongik Art College in Seoul, South Korea, where he was born, said he was excited to learn that his pen and ink and watercolor painting was a winner on his first attempt at submitting artwork for a contest.
Fusco and Lee have kept in touch since their retirements from the Postal Service and when Fusco saw that the building was being demolished, he contacted Lee about his painting. Lee agreed that the Post Office, which served the Longport community since the 1930s, should be remembered along with the dedicated employees who braved snow, rain, heat and gloom of night to deliver the mail to the community.
Since the Post Office’s demise, letter carriers work out of the Margate Post Office on Franklin Avenue.
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