ALBANY — The verdict is in: A financial crisis is no time to burn millions of taxpayer dollars on a luxurious “hotel” for judges.
Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau made that admission yesterday after legislators grilled her on how the courts could cry poverty while building the exclusive enclave of judicial apartments in Albany as part of a breathtaking, $23 million renovation project first reported in The Post.
The seven apartments — with cherry-wood furnishings and Carrera marble countertops — will be set aside for appointees to the Court of Appeals.
“If we were going to make this decision today, certainly this is not the decision we would have made,” Pfau said at a hearing on the Office of Court Administration’s spending.
But she insisted it was too late to stop the lavish renovations to the 1898 Albany landmark known as Centennial Hall.