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The grand 19th Century architecture of the state Capitol in Albany draws visitors from around the world each year, but over the last decade, fixtures like the Million Dollar staircase, the War Room and other areas outside the state Senate and Assembly chambers have become an integral part of the legislative process.
New York’s state Capitol building has served as the state’s seat of government since the 1880s, and for generations, officials scheduled press events about the Legislature in a special corner of the Legislative Office Building, which sits adjacent to the Capitol.
The small room on the first floor of the LOB remains reserved for events with reporters, but the stage to grab the public’s attention has shifted in recent years to the Capitol itself — especially in wake of social media.
"It makes it easier for legislators to be part of it and reporters to cover it if it’s right on their doorstep than it was where they had to walk across the street," NYPIRG Executive Director Blair Horner said Monday. "…It doesn’t guarantee anything, but raising the visibility of an issue makes it more likely that it’s under consideration at the highest levels."
The prevalence of social media and smartphones have turned the historic rooms of the Capitol building into the literal stage for some of the state’s biggest legislative battles.
Advocates and lawmakers have increasingly used the Million Dollar Staircase, the War Room and other areas of the People’s House to draw attention to their cause — with Albany’s halls evolving to hold more than the seat of government.
"It’s much more of a chaotic scene where you may have competing events happening all in the same place," Horner said. "But with the Capitol as a stage, sometimes there’s a traffic jam when it comes to what performance is going to be seen."
Advocates have long used signs or visuals to gain support, but Horner said the recent demonstrations have taken issues to new heights.
"[In the LOB], people dressed up as dancing dimes to improve the bottle law, and animal costumes to protect endangered species, so it’s not that it didn’t happen, but it just didn’t happen as much," he said.
The rooms of the Capitol that hold the echoes of Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller have become a new backdrop for staged political pressure.
Former Manhattan state Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, who served in the Legislature for 52 years until his retirement in 2021, says the use of the building’s hallways and staircases gives New Yorkers more chances to speak out.
"I think it gives groups more of an opportunity to get a spotlight, even if briefly, for an issue that otherwise might not have come to people’s attention," Gottfried told Spectrum News 1 earlier this year.
But back-to-back events throughout the building compete for reporters’ and lawmakers’ attention — pushing groups to get more creative in how they use the Capitol to fight for what they want in the budget and beyond.
At the end of session this past June, advocates focused on legalizing medically assisted suicide flooded areas outside the legislative chambers and set up displays that spanned multiple floors, including the walkway to the concourse of the Empire State Plaza.
Corrine Carey, New York and New Jersey’s campaign director for Compassion & Choices Action Network, said the demonstrations struck a chord with lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle. One assemblymember lied down with advocates on the floor of the walkway in hopes to get his colleagues’ attention to the issue.
"We saw that breezeway between the LOB and the Capitol, and we thought ‘We’ve never seen anybody there before, what if we just started to set up there with our signs and our candles?’ And so we did," Carey recalled.
One senator became a co-sponsor after speaking with a high schooler from Western New York who participated in the demonstration.
The bill, known as Medical Aid in Dying, would allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who have been given six months or fewer to live to take their own lives with a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs.
State lawmakers have never voted on the controversial proposal, and instead have turned to more substantial, and eye-catching, visual displays.
Carey said the group used to depend on using photos of terminally ill New Yorkers who died without medically assisted suicide, but has since changed their strategy to be more uplifting.
"We read the room and understood we had sort of saturated lawmakers with images of suffering," she said. "While that is still a reality here, we have to be really nimble."
Dueling events have been known to cause chaos in the Capitol, and too many visuals during session can dissuade electeds from a cause
But at the end of the day, longtime Albany regulars say the modern practice has an overall positive effect on New York’s democracy.
"On the whole if you believe that democracy is helped by average people having an easier time making their voice heard to their legislators, and I’ve always believed that, I think it’s a healthy thing," Gottfried said.
