- The New York State Capitol will add a new face to its 'Million Dollar Staircase': Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first woman and first person of Jewish descent to be memorialized on the staircase.
- The new carving will be fashioned from the same Corsehill sandstone used for the original stairs and is expected to cost about $150,000.
- The original staircase was supposed to cost $1 million, leading to its nickname, and featured 78 carvings of 77 distinguished figures of the day.
- The few faces of women originally depicted were clearly more for ornamental than honorific purposes, and there are no known Native Americans or people of Asian descent depicted.
- The addition of Justice Ginsburg's likeness to the staircase will be the work of the artist Meredith Bergmann, who also sculpted a bust of the judge in clay in 2010.
‘Million-Dollar Staircase’ Adds a New Face: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
After 125 years, the male-dominated architectural fixture of New York’s Capitol is getting an update.
By Grace Ashford and
