New York State Capitol Albany
— — granite cut by hand, then walked smooth for a hundred and twenty years.
Not only on a wall.
“The Capitol sits at the head of State Street, looking down the slope toward the Hudson. Five architects and thirty-two years went into the granite pile, finished in 1899 at a cost of about twenty-five million dollars. Inside, the Million Dollar Staircase carries some three hundred carved faces up four stories of red sandstone. From the front steps in late afternoon the west face holds the last sun.
New York State Capitol Albany, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The New York State Capitol stands at the head of State Street in downtown Albany, the seat of the state legislature and the governor. Construction began in 1867 and finished in 1899, with five lead architects across that span, including Henry Hobson Richardson and Leopold Eidlitz (NYS Office of General Services). The total cost ran roughly twenty-five million dollars, the most expensive government building of its day. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1979.
The exterior is Maine and Hallowell granite cut in heavy Romanesque and Renaissance Revival blocks. The interior centerpiece is the Great Western Staircase, called the Million Dollar Staircase, carved in Corsehill red sandstone between 1883 and 1897. Stonecutters worked on it for fourteen years, and the walls hold roughly three hundred faces — presidents, governors, family members, and uncredited portraits the carvers left for themselves (NYS OGS, Capitol Tour Notes).
Free public tours run weekdays through the NYS Office of General Services, typically starting from the visitor desk on the concourse below the building. The Senate Chamber, Assembly Chamber, War Room, and Million Dollar Staircase are the standard stops. Empire State Plaza sits one level below to the south, with the Egg performing arts center, the New York State Museum, and the reflecting pool that doubles as a winter skating rink.