Giornale

On April 6^th, I ventured to New York’s administrative capital Albany along with nineteen other students and two professors.  The drive into the Capital revealed the quiet of the city on a Sunday afternoon; streets were deserted save for a few people huddled on stoops and the occasional whoosh of hot air from passing buses.  Many of the buildings seemed to be in the early stages of neglect with paint peeling off the sides and cracked sidewalks revealing weeds and cigarette butts.  Our car, once joking about the monstrous size of Druther’s burgers and Fun Day, fell silent as we soaked in the atmosphere of a city on pause.  Groups of people stood outside the liquor stores whose bright neon signs advertised sales on half liters of Budweiser and Sam Adams and the smell of fried chicken wafted through the car windows. 

            It was only when we neared the top of the hill that a sense of Albany’s bureaucratic character started to come about.  The towering spire of the cathedral pierced the sky, a fortress among the small bodegas and hair salons clustered down below.  The surrounding War Memorial garden was a quiet reprieve from the clatter of car horns and jostling elbows.  Names of battles and the fallen were inscribed on a center fountain, giving off an impression of solemnity and respect for martyrs of American freedom.  The severity of the war on the city’s collective memory was only heightened by a poem on the outskirts of the monument.  Chiseled in marble and adorned with an American flag, this poem stands as a testament to the strength and power of the United State’s commitment to preserving liberties.  The New York State Museum’s imposing block-like structure revealed itself as we walked further down the street.  Dominating the Empire State Plaza, its multiple windows and cascading steps that spilled oneself onto the courtyard, lent an air of authority and prestige among surrounding gray-clad buildings.  As we descended the stairs, the museum still towered over us, refusing to allow us to forget its cultural legacy among the brutish administrative offices. 

            The plaza was peppered with agency buildings, hulking blocks of windows and straight lines cutting into the courtyard’s space.  The only marker of difference among them was the number attributed to each one; its squat entryway was dwarfed by the sheer multitude of the offices on top.  Despite being used for civic and political responsibilities, the ambiguity of the building’s titles and the glass doors, barely discernable from our position on the steps, made me wary about approaching them.  Our ascension into the courtyard only reinforced the vastness of the space.  The marble entryway toward the ornate Capital building was broken up by small bridges over a defunct pool.  The blue tarps provided a welcome relief from the authoritarian gray.  Modern sculptures also surrounded the courtyard; yellow circles curved around each other in the shape of an eye, daunting passerby to step into its web while a gray ‘V’ turned in the shape of the wind, playfully enticing worker drones to take a break from their stacks of papers and coffee mugs.   The Egg’s circular structure, while whimsical in comparison to the agency buildings, was still covered in the same depressing gray hue.  Not even a center of art and entertainment could escape the uniformed dominance of the nearby buildings.  The one saving grace from the 1984-esque architecture was the ornate Capitol building, one that reminded me of a classical Venetian Palace or Paris opera house instead of Rockefeller’s brutalist architecture.  It’s multiple spires and burnt copper roof gave an air of regal authority over the modernist agency buildings, a spot of imperfect beauty among perfectionism.  This same idea of perfectionism was also on display in the courtyard.  The placement of trees seemed to be carefully regimented as each one was placed exactly as far apart as the previous ones or neglected behind the wrought-iron gates.  Cement blocks, linked together by heavy chains, further contributed to space as dominating the actions of the passerby.  The total authoritarian mood of the Empire State Plaza reminded me of a dystopian novel in which the state has all control over its citizens.  Rockefeller’s dream of politics as power certainly manifested itself in the plaza, both above and below ground.

            One of my favorite movies is ‘US’ and depicts an underground city clad in tan walls and long imposing hallways.  As soon as we entered the concourse, I automatically felt a sense of déjà vu. The silence was deafening, only made eerier by the shuttered restaurants and civic offices (post offices, banks, shoe shops).  The lack of clicking heels or shuffling footsteps among the soaring ceilings reinforced my impending sense of claustrophobia.  The only redeeming grace was the modern artwork strewn along the walls, splashes of bright pink and red breaking up the tan uniformity.  My eyes stayed glued to these paintings as we continued to walk down the never-ending hallway, each step muffled by the slick floor wax.  Our ascent into the blinding sunlight and the bustling city street caused me to wince.  I had been eaten by the vast underground of Albany and came back up again, only to be swallowed by rush hour traffic and families taking their jelly-stained and sippy-cup toting kids to the museum.  I was never so happy to escape the bustle and walk into a near-empty parking lot.