Morning journal and courier., 1886-03-13

higher storit of lighter Gothic, Oriental, or Moorish forms, upon 8 building begun and carried partly up in the hard and mas sive renaissance, might at first seem 1ncon- gruous; but the effect, in the Albany pile, is not bad. It is not the arehitecture-the external part of it, we mean-that is in fault, so much as the extravagantly loose and reprehensible management in the work of construction. Such wholesale waste seems to suggest jobbery and robbery, during some, or many, of these eighteen years.
 What is there to show for this unex- ampled outlayi
 A vast granite pile, covering three acres of ground, and having three great stories mounted upon great basement, and above the cornice half dozen high and solid pavilions, as high as many of the great busi- ness blocks in New York, and surmounted by solid and symmetrical tower 320 feet high. The entire structure weighs over 160, ,00e tons, and the soaring tower, beauti- full in it combination and effect, can be seen far and wide from the Hudson and the rounding country. It was expected that it could be built for $9,000,000. But that was much less than half the aggregate sum that has already been laid out on it. It has cost New York State upwards of $4 a head for every man, woman, and child in the State or nearly $15 a head for every voter. A good many men have no doubt grown rich out of all this expenditure. The cost has been far greater than was necessary. Nor is the work what it should be- after such wasteful payments. It is said that the great paintings on the walls of the assembly cham ber-which, like the fesh-tinted Sienna mar bles brought from Italy to set off properly the massive brasses of the enormous fire places, were ordered regardless of cost-are century ahead of the civilization of the pres ent day: but what shall be said of the fact that after all the expenditure on this gran ite pile, the building, besides sinking and cracking badly, has not even served the primary purpose of shelter, and that it has admitted the rains as to ruin one of the pictures? Moreover the great halls and massive Gothic stairways dark and son. bre; the interior design does not admit proper amount of light. On the outside and inside there is world of extravagant work in ornate carvings, and other expensive elab orations, which, like some of the same kind on Philadelphia's new "public buildings" i" never will be seen appreciated by the public. It is useless, wasteful work On some of the great freplaces workman would be a month at work, at & good fat price per day, executing few square feet of the ornamentation. A vast crowd of peo- pie would seem to have looked upon this building at Albany 'their mutton," and hundreds have sought to get rich out of it. Every chair is designed for a particular room, and the architects have a furniture factory Tn the Capitol. Under those mag niticent embossed ceilings, and against those beautiful leather walls, every piece of furni- ture, even to the lofty Gothic clocks, must be made for it's place, and most of it mahogany.
 The Albany structure is a magnificent pile-but, with such gigantic sum to ex- pend upon it, what 8 piece of beautiful. noble, and inspiring architecture, inside and out, and in everything worthy of great and free people for whose capitol it was desig- mated, could have been erected on that hill in Albany! But that ideal pile, costing fully satisfactory in it's details, to be built eveh at such cost, with rigid honesty and no jobbery As it is, there is nothing in Europe to compete, in several particulars, with the Albany structure.