Talk:Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Epicgenius (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 03:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Starting this one. No first glance comments. Not remotely GA affecting, but perhaps another look at whether there needs to be a single explanatory note or whether that note can simply be in the prose. CMD (talk) 03:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Images are all licenced appropriately, a mixture of public domain and cc. CMD (talk) 06:38, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Some more detailed comments. Please let me know if any of my comments and suggestion is based off a misinterpretation.

• "is composed of two sections", I wouldn't expect a building with an annex to be described as having "two sections". Just skimming at the moment the annex gets maybe 1.5 paragraphs throughout the article, and is apparently integrated into the original building, so section doesn't work at all. I feel the lead works well just removing ""is composed of two sections".
  • Good point, I've removed it. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• A minor point beyond GACR: Rogers & Butler are redlinked in the body, I would redlink it in the lead/infobox as well assuming you feel it is notable. (If it is not, the redlink should be removed from the body.)
  • I've added a red link. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Could "with a Holocaust Memorial by Harriet Feigenbaum" be tweaked to note the memorial was added to the original, putting the sentence in line with the earlier one which noted temporal changes in statue count?
  • The memorial is actually at the far northern end of the annex; I've added that. 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Took me a couple of minutes to figure out "on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 25th Street", would it be possible to add "the intersection of"?
  • Done. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Having trouble understanding the ZoLa source. Where does 74.5 feet in the article come from? (Seems likely right per eg. [1] but just checking the source here.) The lot depth of 150 in ZoLa presumably means the frontage does not cover the entire length of the lot.
  • I have no idea. The original frontage comes out to 150 feet on 25th Street and 50 feet on Madison Avenue, according to this source. I've revised this. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Is Daniel C. French part of the sixteen sculptors?
  • He is. The ten rooftop sculptures, the two rooftop sculptural groups, the caryatid carvings on Madison Avenue, and the three sets of carvings on the 25th Street facade are all designed by different sculptors. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Could "four periods of the day" have a colon after it instead of a full stop, spent a long time trying to figure that out before realising it was in the next sentence. I even checked the source which calls them "the four hours of the day", and I agree with the wording change made here but it sadly didn't help me at the time.
  • I have done that. Sorry for the confusion, I assumed that a reader might make a connection between the two sentences (e.g. they would have read these two sentences as "...the four periods of the day. These periods are morning, night, noon, and evening"). Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Might be worth shuffling the Force, Wisdom, and Caryatide images into sections they are discussed, but that is minor and stylistic. I do think it worth mentioning the seasons represented in the caption though (Winter and Autumn per my understanding of the article).
  • I'll do this in a bit. Unfortunately, I think this might cause MOS:SANDWICH issues, so I have left it alone for now. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• "Winter, holding a censer with a flame". Winter is not holding the censer, it is beside her. (The source says "to her left", but it's clearly on her right so maybe they mean stage left.) Additional note that the rewriting here is well done, only "nude to [the/her] waist" is the same and that seems a not uncommon phrasing.
  • I've fixed that. Thanks for the comments about the rewriting. Yeah, "nude to the waist" is so common that I thought it would be classified under WP:LIMITED. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• "Englishman", "Spartan", and "Greek man" feel lackluster compared to the double adjective "Chinese philosopher" and "Hebrew lawman". Could Alfred, Lycurgus, and Solon get a second adjective? Further, could Solon be described as "Athenian" instead of Greek given Lycurgus is described as Spartan? (This is in the source as well as Greek.)
  • I have changed it according to the source.
• Unsure comparing the prose description and caption of Daniel Chester French's Justice whether Justice is the whole sculptural group or just the woman. If the first, the prose needs adjusting, while if the second, the caption needs adjusting.
  • It refers to just the woman. I've added the names of French's other two sculptures to the caption. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• The Timeout source suggests the NOW sculpture installation was temporary, could this be noted in the text? It also suggests NOW should be allcaps, as does NYT. Reading both, I am not sure that "was intended to address culture wars directly" is a clear conveyance of the materials, this would benefit from being rewritten.
  • I have done all of these. The text indicates that the statue was intended to address gender inequality and gender biases, so I've added that. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Why does the Interior subsection open with "In the original plans", did the plans change?
  • Nope. I've removed that. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Beyond GACR, but I don't suppose there is a floor plan image out there that could be added?
  • Unfortunately not at this time. I can request that someone create it though. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• "George Maynard designed seals of the city and state governments of New York on either side of the triptych." Don't fully understand the meaning here, designed as in carved or similar?
  • Yes, he carved a pair of seals. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Why is the Other spaces subsection in past tense?
  • Not sure. I've fixed this now. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• Beyond GACR: "There was relatively little media coverage of the building during its construction", curious if more detail could be added here as to what this means. What was the baseline for media coverage at the time?
  • This isn't in the article, but at the time, events such as the building's topping-out (and even minor events, such as the receipt of funding sources for the building) would have garnered coverage in two or three newspapers at the minimum. However, many of the events related to the building's construction were only discussed in a single newspaper; for example, the issuance of bonds for the new courthouse in June 1898 is covered in a single New York Times newspaper. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• The final paragraph in the 1960s to present subsection also reads oddly in past tense.
  • I've changed this to present tense. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• "but it regarded the sculptures as having had relatively little impact on popular art", don't have access to the source but this is confusing to read. What impact did Scientific American think sculptures could have given this review occurred when the building was opened?
  • I've removed that bit for now, given that this was a contemporary review rather than a retrospective. Epicgenius (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Overall, well-written. Some areas of slight repetition, but all made sense given the different sections of the article. The lead touches upon all sections. Sources checked had at most minor deviations (mentioned above), nothing meriting concern. The same spotchecks found no plagiarism. No sources stood out as unreliable. I'm not sure what main aspects might be missing, articles by the same author recently approved for FA (Lever House and New Amsterdam Theatre) have similar structures. There is a great amount of detail, but there are no subarticles and the article is compact enough that nothing seems worth splitting out. No neutrality concerns found, and the article is very stable. Putting on hold given the questions and comments above, although they don't detract much from the overall quality. CMD (talk) 08:50, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the review; I appreciate the comments. I'll be away from my computer this weekend but will hopefully be able to respond to these by Monday. Epicgenius (talk) 12:23, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

No hurry on my end, best, CMD (talk) 15:20, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again for the review and for your patience Chipmunkdavis. I've addressed all of your comments now. Epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

A reader may logically think to connect the sentences, but sadly not this one who didn't make it to the next sentence. Full respect to MOS:SANDWICH. A floorplan would be great if you intend to continue improving this article. The only outstanding point remaining from above is that it remains unclear to me from the prose that Daniel C French is one of the "Sixteen sculptors, overseen by Daniel Chester French". Not something that makes or breaks GACR1a on its own though, so will pass this and good luck with future development. I enjoyed reading this article. CMD (talk) 12:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)