Twilight of the Spitzer administration

I sure picked the right day to be in Albany.

I happened to make a rare trip there on Monday, March 10th, 2008 to have dinner at with the writer Jim Kunstler, who has a novel coming out next week from Atlantic Monthly Press. We met at Jack's Oyster House, the classic  Albany eatery/watering hole which fairly reeks of sleazy politics, despite the impeccable service.

Now, Albany's one of my less favorite places. The city's rich and sordid glory years can be best understood from the less-than-subtle yet entertaining novels of Bill (Ironweed) Kennedy. Then, in the second half of the 20th century, much like New Haven, Connecticut and Hudson, New York, the City of Albany made just about every bad urban planning decision possible—from cutting the population off from its riverfront with highways, to building a forbidding Brutal ist plaza out of the worst nightmares of Jane Jacobs.

But here I was waiting at the bar at Jack's, with one eye on the televised apologies of our once-crusading  (and soon-to-be-former) Governor, and the other on a silver-haired pol in a pinstripe suit, buying drink after drink on his platinum card for a busty young woman easily 35 years his junior—who were much less than shocked by the news coming over the television.

Some who (like me) donated time and money to Spitzer (on the premise that he really meant to reform Albany and set a higher standard) are eager to make excuses for him, and to see a Siegelman-esque Rovian plot to entrap him, I can't make a single excuse for him—click here for that.

Before heading to Jack's (parking was impossible, more due to the Siena basketball game that night than the legislators and aides staying in town after 5 pm on the off-chance a new governor was sworn in), I headed over to the Capitol to take some photos of the twilight of the Spitzer administration, which follow below: