empire state plaza
a meeting place for amorous adolescents - families with young children cavorting on art that you can actually touch and clamber on top of - state workers catching lunch - schoolgirls in black skirts on a school outing playing hopscotch in the sun. it is a mountainous barrier between lower Albany, NY and upper Albany with its skyscrapers projecting outwards into space. the Little Italy section of the city was bulldozed in the late 1960's with great accompanying uproar and consternation to create it. the brain child of Governer Nelson A. Rockefeller, who was embarrassed that the capitol of New York State lacked grandness. the project was started in 1968 and completed in 1978 at a cost of $1.7 billion. it was designed by William Harrison - the principle architect of the Rockefeller Center in NYC. a good place for introspection, the scale dwarfs human beings but it is spacious rather than claustrophobic. the texture of the place lends itself to meditation - I practice breathing exercises there during the summer. in the winter one of the reflecting pools is traditionally turned into a skating rink. this year the skating rink was deemed too frivolous a costly to put on. water, glass, marble, modern art - my sister-in-law likened its grand severity to soviet architecture. she is put off that the footprint of New York State on Albany feels totalitarian. I think its severity soothing - but concede that it looks like a modern fascist dreamscape.