Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1885-02-05
NEW YORK'S CAPITOL.



Albany correspondent Of The New
York Tribune, is the most expensive
| ediice on this continent, having now
cost approaching $15 400, 600. The
capitol at Washington was summed
up ten years ago to have cost ABOUT
$l3, 600, 200, and since chat time moth
ing has been added except the i'm
provement of the capitol grounds
The uperinteGdent at Albany told
me that he thought he could finish the
capitol if he had S., 900, 600 voted in
one lump. Some skeptics there saw
that the capitol will take $40, 600, 900
more. Ii it is to be finished with the
tower, / should think it would cost
nearer $25, 900, 900 than 500, O00. O0O
| While the Albany capitol has great
depth, it is in is longest part hardly
half the length OF the national CAPT
toll. A good deal of the latter edifce
merely curtain or screen to connect
the wings with the old center. The
Albany capitol has three great stories
mounted upon great basement, and
above the cornioe are pavilions, them.
selves as ordinary business blocks in
1 New York. The architecture of the
I capitol has manifestly changed. and
! beginning with hard and massive
/ renaissance rustlcated, it seeks in the
/ higher stories to get into Gothic, east
ern, and Moorish forms, SO that it may
/ be llkened to stone hoWer-pot with
4 the tlowers popping out above. 1t is
I impossible not to admire such a mag
nificent mass of stone. Nearly every
body likes the latest additions the best.
We have had so much Roman renais
sancc put up in this country ia the
past fifteen years that it has become
monotonous. One of the architects of
the Albany capitol was given the old
courthouse of New York city to ex-
tend, and with complete Indifference
to what had been already done he put
his Oriental architecture upon the
classical body of the building. Vet
saw prominent architect not long
ago reading a book of essays on archi.
lecture by this same man, and he said
Here IS the best writing | have seen
IN America by an architect.
The state Of New York has reached
in the new caption at Albany the
highest monumentalizing of prov.
ince known in modern or perhaps
feudal times. can think of no public
building IN the old ducal sovereignties
of Europe which approaches in any
way the proportions and expense of
this capitol of mere state. The great
dukes of Burgundy, who astired to be
kings, have left but a pltiable pile to
compare with New York's elephant.
The houses of parliament, splendid as
they are in external effect, cost less
than Albalty's capitol. Three million
pounds sterling was expended there,
and the building contains eleven
courts, one hundred staircases, /, 100
apartments. and has three towers
each over three hundred feet high. |
The Albany capitol has but one
court, think. 1t is generally said to |
be about 400 by 800 feet, and it has
already cost more than the American +
capitol by 50, 500, 600, and nearly 81,
500 600 more than the Westminster
house of parliament. 1t must be said I
however, that the Albany building is |
more splendid within than the palaces I
at Washington or Westminster. Very
much seems to have been spent at
Albany in minute elaboration and in
the carrying out of details which will
probably be better appreciated by our
posterity than by the present race of
taxpayers.
If we consider the population of
New York at 5000, 600 people, they
have already sgent between IS and "a
q head on the Albany edifice. Taking
the number of voters at 1900 600 as
representative of the true taxpayers,
they have paid something like S14 a
head to have the greatest stale capitol
in the world. Yet if we would poll
New York state to find its cultivated
members, they would far exceed the I
cultivation of France when the |
Tuileries and Louvre were built, even |
in matters Of art and architecture. 1t
is seldom that the great body of the
people have any technical acquaint-
ance with the prevailing art When /
the Norman monks and architects pat |
up the glorious cathe3rals in the north |
Of France, in Belgium and in Eng |
land, their dukes and kings could /
neither read nor write. Consequent I
ly we may suppose that the most
ignorant ns8mber OF assembly VINO /
sta under the vaulted roof Of stone
supported on its four polished
columns Of granite, knows more
about tho art which surrounds him
than the duke of Norman who found
ed the royal house OF England.
Neither the American congress nor
parliament nor any law making body
on the globe has such surroundings
as the senate and assembly of the
province OF New York. One architect
took the assembly in hand, and an
other. to use the words of Artembs
Ward, put soul" into the senate.
A fine foreign critic on such matter
would express the sanae astonishment
entering those two chambs that the
Official classes of England do at the
magnitude of the federal printing.
How in the world do you get so
much money! said an officer of the
British census, looking at the mag
niicent volume of Gen. Walkers
late census. When Mr. Hendricks