A Cuomo Microscope on Capitol Renovation

A Cuomo Microscope on Capitol Renovation

ALBANY — No one would accuse Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of lacking attention to detail. But in recent months, his passion for the restoration of the Capitol has amazed even his closest aides, as the state’s chief executive has seemed at times more like its chief historian — or, at other moments, its chief architect, interior decorator and custodian.
At one point, arguing that the sheen of the salmon-colored walls was just not quite right, he insisted that the glossy paint be replaced with a matte finish, for greater historical accuracy.

Bothered by chemical stains that he noticed had accumulated along the base of the building’s walls from decades of floor wax, Mr. Cuomo tracked down the worker who oversees the buffing of the floors in the Capitol.

And the governor marched up to the fifth floor of the building to make sure a handful of state legislators would not drag their feet in switching offices in order to make way for asbestos removal as part of an accelerated renovation schedule.

In a marriage of Mr. Cuomo’s passion for history and his penchant for micromanagement, the state’s first-term governor has seized hold of a long-in-the-works Capitol restoration project, proclaiming that the effort should symbolically demonstrate that the state can actually get something done, and that, even in scandal-addled Albany, government could be a source of pride.

“It’s a sign of progress,” Mr. Cuomo said in an interview on Tuesday. “When you think about it, it is a convenient but accurate metaphor for the past year. This government did things that people didn’t think it could do, and that it hadn’t done in many, many years. The Capitol has a new energy about it, a new respect about it, a new credibility and competence about it, and the physical now mirrors that reality.”

The Capitol, finished in 1899 after three decades of construction in multiple architectural styles, is a National Historic Landmark, but it had become so dilapidated in recent years that construction workers could fit their fists through the holes in the red terra cotta roof.

Renovations began in 2000, and are scheduled to be completed this year, two years ahead of schedule. The Cuomo administration said that by speeding things up, the state would save more than $2 million.

The renovations have drawn snickering from some at the Capitol, who wonder how the people charged with running New York State have time to worry about paint colors and flooring.

But the governor insisted that appearances matter.

“I walk into your home, you haven’t said a word, you’ve communicated a lot to me: what you have on the walls, what it looks like,” he said. “This building makes a statement about the state government.”

And there is no dispute: the Capitol looks great. The dean of the Albany press corps, Fredric U. Dicker of The New York Post, declared on his radio show on Tuesday that a refurbished Hall of Governors was now “one of the most impressive exhibition halls of portraiture that you could find anywhere in the world.”

And Assemblyman John J. McEneny, a Democrat who represents Albany and was once its county historian, credited Mr. Cuomo with “clearing the gloom out of a magnificent building” that many of his predecessors had ignored.

“I love it,” Mr. McEneny said. “It’s the best in my lifetime, and I’m 68 now, and I used to come here as a 10-year-old.”

Starting Wednesday, a collection of artifacts will be displayed around the Capitol complex, including the original handwritten draft of the state’s Constitution from 1777, complete with insertions and words crossed out. Among the displays is a 1932 Packard Phaeton bought by Franklin D. Roosevelt (who served as governor of New York before being elected president) and a 1966 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle used by state troopers.

Mr. Cuomo, himself the son of a former governor, lent several items from his own personal collection — including documents from the former governors Morgan Lewis (who served from 1804 to 1807) and Martin Van Buren (1829) — as did Howard B. Glaser, the director of state operations, whose office walls are lined with historical documents. Mr. Glaser said he was particularly taken with a wooden keg that Gov. DeWitt Clinton used in 1825 to pour water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean to mark the opening of the Erie Canal.

“It just reminds you that real people are connected to these sometimes abstract events,” Mr. Glaser said.

And Mr. Cuomo, pausing at one point to list some of the famous names who had handled the doorknob of his ceremonial office, said the building’s history gives him perspective.