This is not New York City related, but it pertains to the state capital. New Yorkers woke up this morning 100 years ago to see the haunting portrait above in the morning papers. The state capitol building in Albany , completed just 12 years before, caught fire on the evening of March 29, 1911, destroying most of the state library and killing one man. Many documents from the early days of New York history — from the founding of New Amsterdam and the early colonization of the region — were destroyed.
Images like the one above momentarily pushed aside stories and images from Triangle Factory Fire, which had just happened a few days previous.
For more images from the New York state archives, take a look here.