The State Capitol Building - Trenton, NJ - Frieze Art on Waymarking.com

The Capitol building (statehouse) to all appearances is a gorgeous, appropriately ostentatious (at least for its era) building that is the highlight of State Street. It is simply beautiful, with its tall Corinthian columns, limestone relief work, amazing rotunda and gold dome. It however received a less than glowing review in the American Guide Series excerpt. The fact is they ripped it as a hodge-podge of clashing architectural styles.

”The Statehouse (open 9-5 weekdays; all night Mon. during legislative sessions), 121 W. State St., is an unsatisfactory composite of additions and alterations, occupying a landscaped plot between State Street and Delaware River. What remains of the original structure, built c. 1792, is now a part of the present building, although exactly what part is uncertain. Subsequent growth has been without regard to foresighted plan. After a fire in 1885, the present front portion and rotunda with gilded dome and lantern were erected in 1889 from the plans of L.H. Broome. The three-and-one-half-story façade is in the French Renaissance style, with a clumsy two-tier entrance porch supported on small scale polished granite columns. The ill-lighted main entrance corridor is hung with indistinguishable portraits of early Jersey statesmen and patriots; portraits of various Governors hang in the executive chambers. Against the walls of the cramped rotunda are musty cabinets of Civil War regimental flags. The second and third floors are labyrinths of gloomy corridors and passageways weaving in and out of erratically placed offices. In the basement, where a bar once provided convenient relief for hard-worked legislators, there is a lunchroom and lounge.” --- New Jersey, a Guide to Its Present and Past, 1939, p.404 - 405

Much of the relief work (frieze) was out of reach of my dimes store camera but there are many sites on the internet where you can see more detailed pictures of this official tourist attraction.