Capital Story, by Cecil R. Roseberry (oversize -?-, 1964, $3, which is 1/3 the internet price.)
Wow, I never knew the story of the capitol building.
Built in 1899, it was the most expensive government building of its time. In today's money it would have cost $500,000,000. Eh, gads. No wonder the building went through four architects, as each one was fired for going over budget. Four builders meant that the building's appearance was either "different" or "ugly", depending on who you asked. Its first floor was Classical Romanesque. Its second was a mix of French and Italian Renaissance. Its upper floors were Victorian-modified Romanesque, and some places inside were Moorish-Gothic.
Then there was the more than one technical "oops". The plans called for a tower and a dome, but even without the tower, stress fractures showed up in the central courtyard. Then the Assembly's ceiling arches weren't quite right, and pieces of the ceiling, along with their painted murals, started falling onto the desks below. So, bye, bye murals, and hello dropped ceiling, which was later filled with steam pipes whose moisture destroyed the now hidden murals.
Also, there were the budgetary extravaganzas, like the Western Staircase, rarely used today, which cost more than $1 million back then, partially due to all its fancy stone carvings.
In addition, the building had to be partially rebuilt after a 1911 fire. The building was supposed to be fireproof, but the books and the shelves in the library where the fire started were not. 45,000 books burned, and 270,000 manuscripts, some of them historically priceless. The part of the building that was saved was saved only by shoddy construction. What was supposed to be plaster molding was really only paper mache, but it soaked up the fire-fighters' water and stopped the fire from spreading, one of the few times when corruption has kept a building from destruction. One could infer from this that not all of the cost of building the capitol was spent in paying for its building.
Now, isn't that a story! It makes me feel like traveling over to Albany to see this "interesting" building with its colorful past. Look for this book in the local section, avail. 12/ 7.
