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Sunday, December 9, 2001

NEW CAP FOR CAPITOL

Swaddled in a million dollars of scaffolding, the state Capitol, political epicenter of the Empire State and one of the grandest buildings constructed in 19th-century America, is having its roof restored from the tip of its tallest finial.

Although workers atop the 220-foot roof of the Capitol appear as flyspecks to pedestrians along State Street and Washington Avenue, their mighty labor is part of an $8.23 million roof restoration that will take more than two years to complete.

It's the first comprehensive overhaul in a century for a roof that leaked ever since Gov. Theodore Roosevelt declared ``complete'' the unfinished, much-maligned, $25 million monumental structure whose construction consumed 32 years and several architects.

The massive makeover includes a dramatic rehabilitation of the historic skylight over the Million-Dollar Staircase. The vast glass spaces had been covered since World War II, presumably as a defensive strategy against nighttime air attacks. When completed in the spring, natural light will pour for the first time in a half-century onto the once-dim, extravagantly carved staircase. -- Paul Grondahl

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