The Dome By Tom Buckham Reprinted from The Buffalo News, march 1, 2001 The dome is 23 feet tall and 56 feet in diameter. It is covered with 13,500 terra-cotta tiles, meticulously engineered to interlock and overlap each other. Each of the 54 rows of tile differs in size from the row above or below it, and each tile is individually imprinted with a row and cast number. The tiles originally were overlaid with copper, which took on a greenish hue. Three times since - 1954, 1979, and 1998 - the dome was gilded with pure gold. The last restoration took required 140,000 paper-thin sheets of 23.75-carat gold leaf and cost $500,000. See drawing of dome being constructed taken from "Tee Gold Dome: An Architectural Profile," pub. by Goldome Bank

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