To some Council members, turning over a renovated City Hall chamber and suite of offices to the next class of legislators is almost a moral obligation.
The oldest continually used space by a local city government last saw significant updating in 1950. Its current state of disrepair is an embarrassment, they said.
“They call this the people’s house. And I know if this was my house, my wife would not let me leave until I had painted and renovated this house,” said Council Member Joseph Addabbo (D-Queens). “It is a shame.”
But the hope to leave the building in better repair than they found it is slipping away.
The bulk of the complex project—which would repair a splotchy historic ceiling, replace an elevator, refurbish Council offices, install building-wide air conditioning and fire alarm systems, and replace the building’s exterior front steps—will be left to those entering office in 2010, members said.
They learned in a Democratic caucus meeting in late March that some urgent work could be completed before they left, but the rest would be delayed.
“The fact is the chamber has always been a big mess, with falling paint and torn carpet,” Council Member Helen Sears (D-Queens) said. But, citing budget woes and logistical challenges, she added, “We would have to vacate and would have to be out for the next two years. Where do we go for all that time?”
It was in 2003 that preservation architect Mary Jablonski, a partner at Jablonski Building Conservation, Inc., did a survey of the chamber and said the repair work would be a challenge.
“There is older plaster that has to be matched. You have to make sure certain things are compatible. There is not a quick and easy fix,” she said.
And with the height of the ceiling, rising some 30 feet, a permanent scaffold would need to be installed.
“The height of the ceiling makes it more complicated,” she said.
The project is estimated to cost about $60 million drawn from the city’s capital budget and would take about a year, city officials said.
In March, the city Department of Design and Construction, the lead agency for the renovation, received proposals from construction management consultants; from their analysis a work schedule should be drawn up by the summer, agency spokesperson Matthew Monahan said.
The paint and plaster ceiling above the heads of the city’s legislators is peeling and blotchy. Occasionally, fallen flecks drift down onto witnesses during testimony, reported some Council members.
Standing in the balcony visitors get sweeping views of the ornate chamber: the deep browns in the carved wood framing the high windows, the rich wall paneling, the muted oil paintings of American heroes, and, high up, the sculpture of a settler and a Native American below a wing-spread eagle.
But also from the balcony, visitors can see up close the flaps of paint peeling like parchment and the pattern of rosette and star providing regularity to the mottled surface where white plaster has been removed to reveal a coarser grey mortar.
From the balcony one can see not only the 105-year-old allegorical painting of New York as a cultural and commercial crossroads—the central image of the ceiling—but the words of George Washington reproduced on a canvas, a limp corner of which hangs down.
One of the logistical considerations is that during some part of the construction the Council will meet in session outside the chambers, perhaps for months.
“It is disappointing. It never gets cheaper. They are talking about not being able to finish before the end of the term. Originally they thought it would be 14 months, now they are talking over two years to do the renovations,” said Council Member Leroy Comrie (D-Queens).
Former speaker Peter Vallone, Sr., who served for 27 years in the Council, agreed that the room needed to be repaired.
“The chamber is one of the most beautiful in the county,” Vallone said. “The paneling is from one huge redwood tree... they used prison labor to build it—it has a remarkable history.”
The only time he recalled meeting outside the chamber was after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he convened the Council at the 42nd Street Library.
The current chamber was originally occupied by two smaller court rooms and a hallway when City Hall was opened in 1812, according to a history of the building provided by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission.
It was not until January 1898 that they were consolidated and opened as a single chamber for a precursor to the City Council known as the Municipal Assembly. That work was designed by John H. Duncan and J. T. Brady, the same architects behind Grant’s Tomb.
Air conditioning was installed in the chamber during the administration of William O’Dwyer, who served from 1945 to 1950. It was that year, 1950, that City Hall received its last major renovation, getting new lights and a new paint job.
After 58 years, and with so many members set to have term limits force them off the Council next year, Council Member Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) said the time for another renovation had come. That may be particularly true for those members, like himself, who are looking to run for other offices next year.
“Some have a custom: when they move out of an apartment, they clean it,” he said. “That is supposed to be good luck for the people moving out.”