Incoming Gov. Kathy Hochul chose the Capitol’s Blue Room – a less ornate space than the Red Room, which is located on the other end of the Capitol and adjoins Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s personal Capitol office – for her first speech and news conference.
The Blue Room, which in 1883 housed the state Court of Appeals, was favored by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, the outgoing governor’s father, as a place to hold formal news conferences. His son since 2011 has studiously avoided the space, in part, because governors had to walk through the Capitol’s public halls – with its protestors or tourists or pestering reporters in chase – to get back to their private offices.
The Blue Room was designed in the late 1800s by noted architect Leopold Eidlitz. In the ways of Albany even back then, disagreements over the Capitol’s design led to officials picking Eidlitz to design one part of the building while H.H. Richardson used a more dramatic flair to design another half of the building that houses the Senate and other historic rooms.
