Empire State Plaza - Characteristics

Characteristics

The Empire State Plaza consists of various marble and steel buildings, seated on a six-story marble platform, representing Rockefeller's concept of architecture as similar to sculpture. Their exterior columns and narrow windows make them similar in style to the former World Trade Center towers in New York City, which were completed about the same time. The buildings constituting the plaza include:

• the four Agency office buildings (numbered "Agency 1" through "Agency 4");
• the Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd Tower;
• The Egg (a theater);
• the Cultural Education Center (State Museum, Library, and Archives);
• the Robert Abrams Building for Law and Justice (known previously as the Justice Building);
• the Legislative Office Building (LOB);
• the Swan Street Building (sectioned into "Core 1" through "Core 4").

The plaza is connected to the Times Union Center (a covered arena, known formerly as the Pepsi Arena) by a pedestrian bridge and to the New York State Capitol by an underground tunnel.

• Empire State Plaza looking northeast

• Agency buildings (1 to 4)

• Corning Tower

• The Egg

• Cultural Education Center

• Justice Building

• Legislative Office Building, offices of the New York State Legislature

• Sign marking the plaza

The plaza also features a skating rink and fountains, though the skating rink season has been shortened during recent years due to state budget issues. Several memorials are located on the plaza, including the New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial as well as memorials for World War II and the Vietnam War.

The scale of the buildings in the plaza is impressive, and the complex is the most easily recognizable aspect of the Albany skyline. The Corning Tower is the tallest building in New York state outside of New York City; the Swan Street Building is more than a quarter of a mile long and modeled partly on Pharaoh Hatshepsut's Temple at Deir el-Bahri, Egypt. The plaza itself is actually the largest building of all.

The plaza has shade trees on the edges, and in the side gardens and memorials. It has been closed to traffic for the past several winters, as of 2010.