Why ads? π€ / Privacy Policy π³
As New York policymakers debate changes to New York’s building code that would require all-electric buildings in the future, we consider how this would be implemented with Matt Whitbeck, co-owner of Whitbeck Construction.
ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a $41 million expenditure to repair the hallowed grand staircase on the front of the state Capitol.
The East-facing steps to the Capitol, which provide views looking toward the Hudson River, are set to undergo a rehabilitation that could re-open the towering but disintegrating staircase that has been closed for years due to safety concerns.
It's part of a broader proposal by Hochul to spend $242 million on infrastructure projects related to state government. State officials have budgeted on the assumption that the federal government's "Build Back Better Act" will not pass in Congress.
In the early morning hours of March 29, 1911, a fire broke out in the New York State Capitol at Albany. By sunset, the vast collection of the New York State Library, then housed in the Capitol, had been reduced to ashes.
On January 6, a mob of about 800 stormed the U.S. Capitol in support of former President Donald Trump, and many people made quick assumptions regarding who the insurrectionists were. Because a number of the rioters prominently displayed symbols of right-wing militias, for instance, some experts called for a crackdown on such groups. Violence organized and carried out by far-right militant organizations is disturbing, but it at least falls into a category familiar to law enforcement and the general public. However, a closer look at the people suspected of taking part in the Capitol riot suggests a different and potentially far more dangerous problem: a new kind of violent mass movement in which more “normal” Trump supporters—middle-class and, in many cases, middle-aged people without obvious ties to the far right—joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election.
In lieu of the crowds of spectators that fill the National Mall for a typical inauguration, this year the iconic stretch of land will be filled with nearly 200,000 flags, representing the thousands of people who cannot attend because of the coronavirus pandemic and tight security in the nation's capital
The U.S. Capitol Crypt is home to 40 oric columns, a dozen statues, and no human remains. It’s also a lot less far off the beaten track than your regular run-of-the-mill underground vault—visitor tours of the Capitol building pass through it on a daily basis.
In fact, the Capitol Crypt wasn’t exactly intended as a crypt. According to Architect of the Capitol, the building’s first architect, r. William Thornton, called it a “Grand VestibuleΘ on a blueprint from 1797. Nine years later, his successor dubbed it the “General Vestibule to all the Offices.Θ But while the room was mainly meant to function as a thoroughfare, it was also supposed to be the final resting place of George Washington and his wife, Martha.
After Washington died in 1799, Congress decided it would be fitting to entomb him in the Capitol. Though Washington’s will expressed his wish to be interred at Mount Vernon, Martha considered it her “public dutyΘ to grant Congress permission to move him. Architects altered the Capitol building plans to make room for a tomb below the so-called “Grand Vestibule,Θ which itself was below the Rotunda (the extravagant circular chamber beneath the Capitol dome). A statue of the first president would sit atop the tomb, and a 10-foot hole in the vestibule’s ceiling would allow people in the Rotunda to look down on it.