However, William Croswell Doane, the first Episcopal Bishop in Albany, was building the Cathedral of All Saints on South Swan Street, on the very block that Commissioner Draper viewed as his.

It was finished on January 1, 1911 but was not dedicated until November 1912 with the state museum and library moving into fireproof wings in the building.

In March 1911 a fire in the Capitol destroyed some of the state library collection before it was moved; over 450,000 books and 270,000 manuscripts and journals were lost in this disaster.

The building has a T-shaped layout, with the colonnade forming the top bar of the T. Its Neoclassical design reflects the renewed interest in this style that followed the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

Important interior features of the building include the 94-foot-high (29 m) rotunda, with its glass-and steel-dome, and the 50-foot-high (15 m) reading room, with its large arched windows.