Albany's Empire State Plaza delivers art and history

By Barbara Gallo Farrell
Poughkeepsie Journal

That’s because in addition to the New York State Museum, the performance arts center known as The Egg, the New York State Capitol, the 42-floor Corning Tower and the vast collection of modern art, the plaza comes alive with a bounty of musical and family entertainment throughout the summer months and well into fall — and it’s all free.

About 90 minutes from Poughkeepsie, the plaza holds much to spark the imagination. And now, more than 30 years after the state’s capital center was completed, there are free guided tours to help you work your way through the 70-acre center that was the brainchild of Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller.

The plaza, in all its architectural wonder, was born from embarrassment.

When Rockefeller hosted Princess Beatrix of Holland in 1959, he was ashamed for her to see the deplorable condition of the city as they made their way to the executive mansion. He decided to create a capital center that reflected the importance of New York state, with much-needed space for government offices amid a dazzling display of architecture.

Started in 1965 and completed in 1978 at a cost of $1.7 billion, the plaza was designed by architect Wallace Harrison, who was chief architect for Rockefeller Center in New York City, the U.N. Building and the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center.

The Egg was supposedly conceived when Rockefeller, described by scholars as a “frustrated architect, held a grapefruit half over a container of cream and told Harrison the plaza ‘needed something like that.’ ”

New York State Museum

Visitors to the museum are greeted in the lobby by the skeleton of an 11,000-year-old mastodon. You can experience New York’s cultural, natural and human history through permanent and special exhibits, dioramas, interactive displays and more.

“Dinosaurs are cool. They’re really big,” said Darius Holman, 10, of Kingston who was visiting the museum on a recent Tuesday with his mother, Toni, and little brother, Davon, 6.

“We love it,” said his mom. “We come here every year. It’s great.”

The museum is a pioneer in dioramas, scenes that are reproduced in three dimensions with a painted background.

“Some of the people in the exhibits are modeled after real people who work here,” said Jennifer Quinn, the museum’s director of marketing.

One of the most popular dioramas is “The Growing Field,” which depicts Native Americans in a field of corn with squash and beans trailing up each stalk.

And then there’s the Iroquois longhouse.

“It’s our most popular exhibit,” said Quinn.

You can arrange to camp out or have a birthday party at the museum (fees are involved for these programs). Camp-outs, for groups of 60 to 100 children and adults, have two themes: “Life in a Longhouse” or “Once Upon a Time in New York.”

The Webutuck Central School District’s fourth-grade class has been doing the camp-outs yearly since 1997.

“It was wonderful,” said Polly Pitts Garvin, whose daughter, Alana, took part in the program in 1997. “It’s so cool to be in the museum with a flashlight at night. And it’s right in our backyard.”

The museum houses a collection of fire apparatus, the oldest from the 1700s, a set from the popular television series “Sesame Street” and a real “A” train from Manhattan. Shop fronts give the feel of the various ethnic groups that made up New York City during the ’20s and ’30s.

“Kids Collect,” on display near Discovery Place, an interactive area for children, is a permanent exhibition area where kids have an opportunity to showcase their own collections.

Whitney Villegas, 5, of Albany was wide-eyed as she peered into a glass case of minerals.

“The glass, it looks like diamonds,” she said, pointing out some of her favorites that included hematite and quartz.

“Minerals of New York” went on permanent display this past spring, a stunning array of mineral treasures from all over the state.

The museum is home to the largest collection of Shaker artifacts in existence, with more than 100,000 objects. A sampling of 200 items comprise the special exhibit that includes Shaker furniture, clothing, baskets and the tools that produced them. Shakers were resourceful and among their many inventions are the clothespin and the flat broom.

Admission to the museum is free, but a donation of $2 per person /$5 per family is suggested.

The Corning Tower

The building is covered in greenish-white Vermont Pearl marble, estimated to be about 470 million years old, with veins of green minerals running throughout it.

On a clear day you can see the Green Mountains of Vermont from the observation deck of the 589-foot building’s 42nd floor.

Hang on to your stomachs, because the elevator to the top attains a speed of 1,400 feet per minute in a non-stop ride from the concourse to the observation deck.

The plaza holds the finest collection of modern American art in any public site that is not contained within the walls of a museum. The public art collection includes 92 paintings and sculptures strategically placed throughout the state agency buildings, along the underground concourse that connects the buildings and outdoors along the plaza and reflecting pools.

The works were created during the 1960s and ’70s, mainly by artists who were members of the New York School, a revolutionary art movement that had emerged in New York City, resulting in the creation of some of the most innovative and avant-garde works of that period.

Masterpieces such as Jackson Pollack’s “Number 12” and Robert Motherwell’s “Dublin 1916, with Black and Tan,” are showcased in the lobby of the Corning Tower.

“Art shouldn’t just be in museums,’’ said Barbara Maggio, assistant curator of the Empire State Plaza Art Collection. “(Rockefeller’s) private collection very much mirrors what’s in this collection.”

Outside, perched in one of the pools of water, is Alexander Calder’s stabile “Triangles and Arches,” a testament to the modernism of the 1960s that rises above the distant landscape of the city, echoing the spires of the Gothic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception to the southeast of the plaza.

The State Capitol

The Capitol building is a marvel of 19th-century architectural grandeur, built by hand of solid masonry over a period of 25 years, under the direction of five architects. When Gov. Theodore Roosevelt declared the Capitol complete in 1899, its cost had exceeded $25 million. Free tours are offered daily at 10 a.m., noon, 2 and 3 p.m. and by special appointment.

There are four floors, housing more than 500 rooms, including the State Assembly, Senate and Governor’s office.

“It’s very eclectic,” said George McCroy, guide with the New York State Capitol Tour Program. “There’s Gothic Revival, Romanesque and Moorish influences.”

Three staircases will make your head spin with the amount of detail and beauty in the carvings of stone.

The Assembly Staircase, completed in 1879, was designed by Leopold Eidlitz and is built of sandstone and granite and Gothic in style. The Senate Staircase is also referred to as the Evolutionary Staircase because of the carvings of animals that decorate it. Built largely of sandstone, it was constructed between 1883 and 1885. The Great Western Staircase, or the Million Dollar Staircase, which actually took $1.5 million to construct and 14 years to complete, is the most elaborate of the three. Completed in 1896, the staircase is a celebration of the stonecarver’s art and includes portraits of many famous New Yorkers

The Senate Chamber is embellished in 23-karat gold leaf, with onyx from Mexico and marble from Sienna, Italy, completing the impressive chamber. The acoustics are so good in there that some senators have been known to walk into one of the two massive fireplaces to carry on a private conversation, said McCroy.

There are elaborate murals throughout the Capitol, including the work of New York City muralist William deLeftwich Dodge, who painted the ceiling murals that embellish the Flag Room, housed beneath a 40-foot high rotunda. His murals chronicle important events in New York state military history, from the earliest sovereigns on the colonial frontier to the impact of the Iroquois Indian Nation, the French, Dutch and English influence.

The Egg

 

The Egg -- the Center for Performing Arts at Empire State Plaza in Albany.

The Performing Arts Center was the last building to be completed in 1978 and is the only building on the plaza faced with concrete.

The Egg contains the 983-seat Kitty Carlisle Hart Main Theater, which is used for the larger productions including musical theater, dance and concerts. The 500-seat Lew Swyer Recital Hall is used for music concerts, cabaret, lectures, multimedia a presentations and solo performances. A spectacular curved space of 10,000 square feet wraps around the main theater as a lobby and is also used for receptions and meetings. There are virtually no straight lines or harsh corners inside The Egg. Throughout the structure, walls of Swiss pearwood veneer add warmth and enhance the acoustics in the theaters.

Current offerings for the 2000-2001 season include 39 events that span the world of entertainment in theater, dance, cabaret, music, family entertainment and special events.

The Platform is actually the largest building at the Plaza, six stories high and a quarter mile long. The first four stories are parking areas with the fifth floor being the underground concourse, which connects all the state agency buildings. It contains a bus/taxi depot, post office, cafeterias, Convention Center and meeting rooms, stores, banks and the Visitor Center.