Giornale (Empire State Plaza, Albany)

The excursion began at the Case Center parking lot. Some people were excited and full of life, and others looked like they jumped out of the bed ten minutes prior. Professor Curley and Spinner gave us a brief on where we were going, and we were off to Albany. The ride to Albany was interesting. Joseph, Reshma, Frances and Emily were the people that I rode with. There were points with no buildings and just grass. I even saw a cow farm with about five cows out and about. We engaged in some conversation in the vehicle about what we are going to do when the field trip is over. The consensus was to get homework done and go to sleep. I jumped in and out of the conversation because I was distracted by my friend that kept trying to video call me.

It was a fast ride to Albany. We arrived there in about 40 minutes and I knew we were there when I saw this gigantic, run down building. The windows were either partially or completely busted. Every time I go to Albany, I wonder what that building is doing there. We pulled over into the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception parking lot and everyone gathered around Professor Spinner’s car. Spinner popped open the trunk and Curley began to hand out the tour equipment. Once everyone received the equipment, we were given a quick brief and made our way to the WWII memorial. Spinner guided us behind the memorial, and everyone was wondering where the hell we were going for a minute.

The first thing that I noticed was that the memorial did not have any coins in it. Whenever I see a fountain, I expect to see coins in it. It was probably because they just opened the fountain after the cold winter. There was an enormous eagle on a pedestal with the inscription “New York State World War II Memorial”. Surrounding the pedestal was the fountain and a number of names, years, flags that were etched into the granite below.

We then made our way across the street to the plaza to take a look at what was going on over there. As we were walking towards the plaza, we began to see the agency buildings. We camped out on top of the museum’s steps to take in the grandeur of the scene. Someone mentioned that the plaza was frozen in the 1960s. I could not agree more with them in that the agency buildings had the architecture of what a modern world would look like for that time period. It was also giving off some USSR nuclear town vibes with the empty reflecting pools and little amount of activity. The trees were bare, and the concrete gave the land a cold feeling despite the relatively warm day.

We then made our way to the very end of the plaza to the front of the egg. I had never been that close to the egg before. I would always drive past it on the freeway and though it looked cool but never expected to be sitting in front of it. Professor Curley had us listen to this odd song about the egg which made me chuckle a bit inside. There was one lyric that said “when is the egg going to hatch” in reference to the building. We walked over a bit to the firefighter’s memorial. There were three enormous firefighters towering over us. The one in the middle looked to be agonizing pain as the other two were guiding him to safety. Behind the firefighters was a gigantic wall with fallen firefighters’ names etched into the granite. There were blank spaces for more names to be added to it.

We took a ten-minute break and made our way underground into the concourse. It reminded me so much of going into a NYC subway station despite the lack of people around. The concourse was filled with closed shops and a safe haven for the homeless of Albany. They were laying down on the benches with all of their possessions in their proximity. As we made our way down the concourse, we saw several of Rockefeller’s art pieces. The one that caught my eye was a painting at the end of concourse with black paint splatters. I did not get a chance to see who the artist was as were rushing to get out of the concourse.

We stopped at the Capitol Building. It is so out of place for this location as it is this enormous palace in the middle of an urban city. Spinner tried to go upstairs but to no avail was blocked by the” absolutely no entry signs” and chains. I will say the Capitol building is beautiful with all of its intricate architecture that can be seen from far away. There were what I assumed to be angel sculptures on top of the building and faces carved into the exterior.

Once we were done with the Capitol, we made our way back to the parking lot. We stopped at Spinner’s car and dropped off the equipment. We were given another brief by Curley that we were going over to Druthers for dinner. My group hopped back in Joseph’s car and we were off. As we were driving, there was not much conversation going on. My friend was still trying to video call me and it looked like everyone else was on their phone besides Joseph. Then the silence was broken by Frances who was wondering where we were going. We all said Druthers and she told us that we are going in the wrong direction. We   realized our mistake that we were going to Druthers Saratoga not Albany. Laughter broke out and we began to talk about our next steps. We decided to just return back home since we were already too far. It was a lovely day with lovely people.