The architecturally controversial seat of New York State’s government is still one of the world’s great showcases of monumental public art. Yet to this day, most state residents and visitors have no idea it even exists, much less have they taken the time to stop and visit the true wonder which is the Empire State Plaza Art Collection.

On the 50th anniversary of the inaugural cornerstone being laid, the Albany Times-Union’s Paul Grondahl started an article on the plaza’s legacy as follows: On June 21, 1965, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller gathered with state and local officials and other dignitaries and laid the South Mall cornerstone — a 7,500-pound block of white granite quarried near Cortland, N.H. — that sealed a document box containing artifacts in the foundation of a long, low-slung building taking shape along Swan Street near the intersection with State Street.
Rockefeller proclaimed it would be “the most spectacularly beautiful seat of government in the world” and “the greatest thing to happen to this country in a hundred years.” He was not a man given to understatement.
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