Thursday, July 28, 2016

Empire State Plaza

If you've been watching my blog for a while, you've certainly seen this place already. My excuse for showing it again is that this time I was having fun playing with my new camera and the 24mm wide-angle lens. These buildings are state offices, built in the 1960s and '70s at the command of New York's governor Nelson Rockefeller.

Looking south with the state capitol at my back.

The plaza stretches for a quarter mile (400 meters) south from the capitol building. At the far end is the Cultural Education Center, home to the New York State Library, Archives, and Museum. Beneath the plaza is a broad underground corridor that connects all the buildings, including the Egg performing arts center (on the left in the photo) and a small convention hall. Not to mention several levels of parking garages.

The four Agency Buildings. You can see part of the Legislative Office Building on the right.

When I got my first full-time job out of high school, I worked in Agency Building 1 at the southern end of the plaza. I loved working in that place, being downtown, walking through the capitol building nearly every day on my way from the bus stop to the office where I worked. That was in the days before heightened security. I could walk right through the capitol complex with no worries. It's not like that any more.


  1. Those office blocks look rather scarily featureless - coldly and impersonally functional. Maybe that had been the intention. If they were being built today I'm sure that a bit of imagination would have made them a bit more approachable and pleasing to the eye. But, there's nothing permanent about fashions and tastes, so who knows?

  2. I remember when those were built. Rockefeller was a piece of work (and I'm not saying that as a compliment).

    It's so strange to look back at those times of free movement. I remember walking right on planes, too. No screening. I guess we'll never see days like that again.

  3. While I am not generally fond of tall buildings of that time, I like the uniformity of these and they appear well.

  4. Wow, those are quite some structures. The contrast with the sky is great in these photos :)

  5. Great photos of modern NYC

  6. that IS a nice area for walking (I've done it).

  7. raybeard, you're not alone in that assessment. But those four buildings are a little more interesting than they appear in my photo. They're wedge-shaped and are suspended from the white marble spines behind them (where the elevator shafts are). They almost hang in mid-air. It's quite a sight.

    mitch, yes, and being able to meet people at the gate, remember that?

    andrew, they're like sculpture.

    judy, it was a dramatic sky day!

    gosia, sorry, it's not NYC, but Albany, NY. :)

    anne marie, unless it's winter, then it's another story!


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