On a quiet Sunday this fall, a few large marble tiles fell from the ninth floor of the New York State Museum and landed in pieces on the sidewalk of Madison Avenue. Be glad you weren't in the vicinity: Each panel weighs hundreds of pounds.

Luckily, no one was injured — though the story might have been different if the tiles had fallen on a weekday, when state workers and tourists flow along the street. The site was barricaded, and the Albany fire department assessed the incident as "isolated." The state Office of General Services conducted an emergency inspection to determine if there were more widespread structural issues with the building — the southernmost outpost of an Empire State Plaza that's coming up on its 50th birthday.