was driving past the state office complex and had some extra energy, so I decided to take a look around, and it's fascinating

of course, by area, most of it looks like this. parking lots far as the eye can see, all completely empty since it's saturday

it has the haunting vibe of a place that's supposed to have people, but doesn't (because weekend). sidewalks with nobody walking, green spaces with picnic tables but nobody sitting at them. this daycare center with no children

have you ever wondered where those temporary mobile offices go when they aren't on a job site? well apparently the answer is here, a gravel lot off next to the office buildings

tusky has started crashing when I try to add descriptions, but most of these things look like you'd expect from mid-century office buildings. they're truly exemplary, fascinating in their mundanity. I liked the patterned concrete and windows above the entrance on this one, which is otherwise all window, and how it looks with the sun peeking from behind it

the employee of the quarter of NYS homeland security and emergency services gets a reserved parking space, says this sign, but the one below it tells them "smoking in designated areas only". even the employee of the quarter can't do whatever they want, I suppose

I noticed the building it's in front of on the way in. the section between the curtain wall cube midrise and the brick-and-glass low-rise has a sort of low-brutalist semi-imposing feel to it

this feels like a university quad. these brick-and-glass buildings feel so similar to ones I remember from college, as does the newer long-and-low glass building in the background of the second picture here. they surround a leaf-strewn green space with places to sit and, presumably, take your lunch break. there's even a sad little water feature, with either a statue or a turned off fountain in it (I can't tell)

I got a kick out of this fallout shelter sign, because it's so perfectly postwar

closer shot of the semi-imposing section of building I mentioned earlier, with its utterly minimalist concrete colonnade

this is home to the department of agriculture and markets, food laboratory, weights and measures, and meteorology. or a college STEM building. very 21st century, chunky and glassy but in a way that's different from 20th century chunky and glassy

this utterly bland box, seen in the background of my first picture, seems to be what the roads want you to see first - it has a driveway loop in front of it. but the look from below that grade is more interesting. the bland box sits atop an also-bland two-story pedestal, with an enclosed bridge over the moat between it and its driveway. it's connected to another building by this glass corridor, presumably for access control reasons since the corridor's doors don't open from the outside

these open green spaces make you see why they call it the state office "campus". it wants so hard to feel like it's a college, but misses that colleges feel that way because people don't just work there, but live and play too

meanwhile, the actual college campus in the adjacent sprawling insular car-centric complex, has started bleeding into this one with this big new building for its *checks google* "Emerging Technology & Entrepreneurship Complex"