Government Plaza, Binghamton facts for kids
Government Plaza is a group of important buildings in Binghamton, New York. It holds offices for the City of Binghamton, Broome County, and New York State. You can find this complex in Downtown Binghamton. It sits on the block surrounded by State, Hawley, Isbell, and Susquehanna streets. The plaza was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was part of a big plan to update and improve Binghamton's downtown area.
The Buildings of Government Plaza
Government Plaza is made up of three buildings. They are connected and form a U-shape.
- The State Office Building is a very tall, 18-story building. It is the tallest building in the Southern Tier area of New York.
- The Edwin L. Crawford County Office Building is on the east side of the complex.
- Binghamton City Hall is on the west side.
There used to be a raised walkway that led to the second floor of the State Office Building. This walkway was taken down in the mid-1990s. It was getting old and cost too much money to fix and keep safe.
A Big Cleanup Project
The State Office Building is known for a fire that happened on February 5, 1981. A large electrical box called a transformer had a problem in the basement. This caused a fire and spread a chemical called PCBs throughout the building.
At first, people thought the building would reopen in just a few days. But cleaning up the PCBs was very hard. The building stayed closed for a long time, finally reopening on October 11, 1994. Workers tried many times to clean the building. They took many samples to check if the chemicals were gone. Even after many tries, it was hard to remove all the residue. This led to several complete cleaning procedures.
The building cost about $17 million to build in 1972. But the cleanup efforts cost much more, around $53 million.
