J\ • Home • id • Mei?£.RJ3. ^ 
 
 A $3,500 COTTAGE. 
 
 [From Fuller & Wheeler's "Artistic Homes."] 
 
I 
 
MENANDS: 
 
 THE GARDEN SUBURB 
 
 OF 
 
 ALBANY AND TROY. 
 
 "Indeed, what more can be desired? A Utile garden to walk, and immensity to reflect 
 upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and 
 meditate upon; a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the %V.y ."—Victor Hugo. 
 
 BY m Pv' PHELPS, 
 
 Author of "Players of a Century," and "The Albany Hand-Book. 
 
 ALBANY, N. Y. : 
 
 Published by Brandow, Barton & Co. 
 1886. 
 
 D 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 H. P. PHELPS, 
 
 1886. 
 
 ^^^ 
 
% 
 
 A HOME OF YOUR OWN. 
 
 nPHE concert-room was crowded, for the gifted prima-donna was 
 ■*- in the full tide of her great popularity. No matter who it was : 
 it might have been Titiens, with a method as grand as the ocean of 
 which she sang; or it might have been Jenny Lind, with a voice 
 more like that of the Seraphim who stand before the Throne than 
 anything we shall hear again on earth ; it might have been Parepa, 
 combining in her superb vocalism the excellencies for which all 
 other singers have been praised ; it might have been Patti, the per- 
 fection and the despair of operatic artists ; or it might have been 
 Nilsson, or Nevada, or our own Albani. 
 
 You were there and you remember when she sang that grand aria 
 from " Norma," how we shouted and waved our handkerchiefs ; and 
 when she gave the Jewel Song from "Faust," how we went wild with 
 delight, and showered upon her bouquets and adulation. 
 
 And you remember, too, when at last, in response to a thunder- 
 ing encore, she came to the footlights, and once more Ufting up her 
 wonderful voice, discarding entirely the language and methods of 
 grand opera, and of foreign music, she sang : 
 
 "'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
 Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home." 
 
 There was no shouting then. The moment of tumult had gone 
 by. The homage which expressed itself in noise had ceased. Even 
 the flowers we laid at her feet could not say all we felt, and then and 
 there, amid silence broken only by the old familiar strain, we ren- 
 dered, one and all, the tribute of our tears. The triumph was com- 
 plete ; but it was not her's alone. The years go by ; her name may 
 have passed from memory, and we may question which of the great 
 artists it was that so moved us, but 
 
 "Though we may forget the singer, 
 We do not forget the song." 
 
4 A Home at Menands : 
 
 There are airs as sweet as the old Sicilian melody which John 
 Howard Payne, strolling one morning through a town in Southern 
 Italy, first heard from the lips of a peasant girl, and, asking her to 
 repeat it, jotted down the notes as near as his limited knowledge of 
 music would admit. There are verses quite as flowing as the words 
 to which the tune was afterwards wedded and that are alone afloat 
 on the sea of forgetfulness which has swept over the great London 
 success of the season of 1823 ^'^^ washed into oblivion the opera of 
 " Clara ; the Maid of Milan." But that one refrain has been sung 
 the same hour by the humblest peasantry in Europe, and in her 
 stateliest palaces. Religion has pressed, in paraphrase, both words 
 and music into her solemn service. It is the sweetest lullaby the 
 mother ever sings. Children learn it next to 
 
 " Now I lay me down to take my sleep." 
 
 It is the national anthem in the Woman's Kingdom. 
 
 And all this simply because the words and music happily com- 
 bine to express a sentiment so tender, so true and so universal as to 
 confer upon the little song the gift of immortality. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 The home instinct is strong in most men and in all women. It 
 is not confined to human beings. Cats have it; birds come hun- 
 dreds of miles to find their last year's nests ; the shad spawned in 
 the Hudson never makes the mistake of going up the Connecticut to 
 rear her family ; the horse, in the hour of peril, will not be driven 
 from its stall, even by the terrors of a conflagration. 
 
 " There are many roosts for a man," some one very prettily has 
 said, " but only one nest." 
 
 A home means stability. The ideal home means ownership, and 
 taxes, of course, and jury-duty and such like privileges. A rented 
 house may be a home, but at the best it is temporary, and must 
 always be so regarded. A home means associations and memories, 
 some sad, some glad, many tender, and all dear. 
 
 But associations will not cling or gather in any shape to any 
 extent when what is your hearth-stone this year may be John Smith's- 
 grocery next May, and the room in which your darling died two 
 years ago is this moment a feeding place for a score of half-civilized 
 boarders. 
 
 True, thousands are happy in homes which are liable to be 
 
The Garden Suburb of Albany and Troy. 5 
 
 shifted every twelve-month, else the world would be fuller of misery 
 than it is at present ; but most persons with anything like " pros- 
 pects " look forward longingly to a home of their very own. 
 
 But a home in the city is not, to people of moderate incomes, so 
 easy of accomplishment. Few of us want to live up an alley, or on a 
 back street, even temporarily ; still less desirable is it to locate there 
 as house-owners. 
 
 But lots on Quality Row, or near Washington Park, cost round 
 sums of money, to say nothing of the expensive houses necessary to 
 correspond with the neighborhood. Then, taxes are high — ^2.06 
 on every hundred dollars in Albany this year, and that on a full 
 valuation — with assessments for re-paving and for street drains 
 probable. These are what make a home seem impossible to persons 
 having an income of not more than from ^1,200 to ^2,000 a year. 
 And how many such there are ! And what a blessing it would be 
 could some way be devised whereby a comfortable home might for 
 
 them be made a possibility ! 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 But why not a home in the suburbs ? 
 
 That, after all, is admitted to be the perfection of desirable cir- 
 cumstances for those who cannot afford to have both a town and 
 country residence, for it combines the social advantages of the one 
 with the natural blessings of the other. It is this idea that has built 
 up around Boston her famous necklace of villages. It is this that 
 has made the red sands of New Jersey and the barren wastes of 
 Long Island to blossom hke the rose, with the surplus population 
 of the Metropolis. Even Philadelphia, preeminently the city of 
 homes, has suburbs made particularly attractive by the far-sighted- 
 ness of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which offers many inducements to 
 become dwellers on its line. 
 
 Love in a cottage, or life in a cottage, no longer means existence 
 in four bare walls where the wealth of roses outside the door ill com- 
 pensates for the poverty of accommodations within. The cottage 
 home of to-day may be a model of taste and convenience. Even in 
 the suburbs all "modern improvements" are possible — well and 
 cistern water, hot and cold, all over the house ; bath-room, water- 
 closet ; a furnace heating all the rooms — everything except the 
 high-priced and extravagant gas, can be had the same as in the city. 
 Add to these a garden, a lawn, flower-beds, trees, pure air, bright 
 
6 A Home at Menands : 
 
 sunshine, and plenty of elbow room ; all at a less annual outgo for 
 interest, taxes, etc., than is paid for rent in the city ; and what 
 a balance of personal comfort there is to be computed in favor of 
 the suburbs ! 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that in such suburbs Albany is as 
 yet strangely deficient — strange because all about her are building 
 sites that abound with many natural advantages — not so strange 
 when their lack of accessibility is considered. 
 
 The first re^isite of a suburb, otherwise desirable, is means of 
 access that shall be cheap, quick and frequent. 
 
 The suburban resident whose business calls him daily to the city 
 must have sure and convenient methods of conveyance, else the 
 daily journey to and fro becomes a weariness of the flesh. 
 
 The advantage of a private conveyance is that it at once affords a 
 thousand places to choose from, for it does not then matter in which 
 direction you live, or whether near the cars or away from them, you 
 are independent ; but such conveyance is not only expensive to get, 
 and expensive to maintain; it is many times unsatisfactory and 
 always more or less of a bother. It is very fine, to be sure, in 
 pleasant weather and when one feels like it, to harness the horse 
 and bowl over a good road in the bright sunshine to and from your 
 home ; but it is not so agreeable when it must be done every day, in 
 dust, through mud, rain or shine, snow or blow ; and always there is 
 the horse to be cared for at both ends of the route. 
 
 Stages and horse-cars are some better, many times, but they are 
 often crowded, and always slow ; and for genuine comfort and con- 
 venience there is nothing to equal the steam cars. They start on 
 time ; they get there without exhausting your patience with the road, 
 or your pity for dumb animals ; you have a comfortable seat ; you are 
 not jammed against a washerwoman, or run over by a coal heaver, or 
 suffocated with foul breath, or choked with tobacco smoke. The 
 horse-car is a necessary of city life ; but it is also a necessary evil, and 
 the suburban resident will dispense with it if possible. 
 
 When we come to examine the time-tables for the hundred trains 
 which, on half a dozen roads, leave Albany in as many directions 
 daily, we are disappointed to find that with a single exception, there 
 is very little accommodation of this kind for those who would reach 
 the city early in the morning, and leave it late at night, and have 
 opportunity to go to and fro frequently, as occasion may require, 
 during the day. 
 
The Garde?i Suburb of Albany and Troy. 7 
 
 This happy exception is the well-managed and popular " Belt 
 Line," as it is called, between Albany and Troy, formed by an 
 arrangement between the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company's 
 and the Central-Hudson River railroads, by which cars leave the 
 Union depot every hour from 7 a. m. to 11 p. m., making a continu- 
 ous circuit, one train in each direction every sixty minutes. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Upon this Belt Line, three miles and a half north from Albany, 
 on the west side of the river, in the town of Watervliet, is Menands. 
 
 The name, intimately and widely associated with flowers and 
 their cultivation, suggests a garden rather than a village, and such it 
 is. And so it appears to the stranger who, in nine minutes after 
 leaving Albany, alights at the pretty station over which the railroad 
 agent, Mr. Augustus B. Lathrop, presides with courtesy and atten- 
 tion. If it is in the summer time, luxurious vines are seen creeping 
 up the sides of the building, while near by are beds of foliage plants 
 and choice flowers selected from the Menand gardens, which lie 
 directly back of the station. Through these and the conservatories 
 the visitor walks, with many exclamations of wonder and delight, for 
 here is gathered the largest, rarest and most valuable collection of 
 cactuses ever brought together in America. Many hundred varieties 
 have been exhibited here at once, and their fame has gone forth 
 throughout the land. They are the particular fancy of the proprietor, 
 Louis Menand, who with his sons, Louis Jr. and Felix, conduct a 
 large floral business here, and at the Rural cemetery, with a branch 
 on State street, Albany. 
 
 In front of the station stands the stately Tweddle mansion, in the 
 midst of orderly and well-kept grounds. Across the road is the 
 residence of Mr. J. W. Tillinghast, President of the Merchants' 
 National Bank of Albany. A little to the north, and within five 
 minutes walk, are the State Fair grounds and buildings. Crossing the 
 track at right angles, the Menand road leads from the Troy turnpike 
 up the hill westward to Loudonville, only a mile or so away. On this 
 road, and near by, are handsome villas and pretty cottages which go 
 to make up " Menands," all well kept, well shaded and situated in 
 ample and well arranged grounds. Among those living here are 
 Messrs. John D. Capron, president of the Albany Board of Trade and 
 of the Home Bank ; Douglas L. and Walter G. White, lumber dealers ; 
 Isaac A. Chapman, Jeremiah Waterman and sons, Joseph A. Lansing 
 
8 A Home at Mejiands : 
 
 of the firm of Wilson, Lansing & Co., all prominent Albany mer- 
 chants of high commercial and social standing ; Thomas L. Goodwin 
 and his son Albert C. Goodwin, engraver and lithographer ; William 
 J. Dickson, a well known grocer ; Charles H. Peck, state botanist ; Mr. 
 Archibald, of Troy ; Mrs. Woolverton ; Mr. Andrew W. Woolverton 
 of the firm of Austin & Woolverton, insurance agents ; Mr. George 
 H. Ball, of Bradstreet's commercial agency ; Mr. Joseph R. Harper, 
 salesman for Fearey & Co. ; Mr. H. P. Phelps of the Albany Times ; 
 Messrs. Charles B. Tillinghast, Albert H. Sliter, James Maxwell, James 
 Gray, Jeremiah Lansing and Mrs. Lyon. Mr. C. W. Little, the law 
 book publisher, and Mr. Dean Sage have handsome residences and 
 spacious grounds further west. 
 
 Fruit and shade trees, vines and gardens are everywhere. Not 
 a poor or unsightly house is to be seen. Every thing, without osten- 
 tation or vulgar display, indicates thrift, comfort, peace and happiness. 
 
 Should the stranger make inquiries he would be told that there 
 are never any houses to rent here ; that almost without exception 
 each resident owns his own home, is delighted with it, and would not 
 be hired to live elsewhere, summer or winter. 
 
 Should the stranger extend his researches, he would be charmed 
 with the pleasant walks and lovely views that are to be enjoyed close 
 at hand. By ascending a not very steep and not very long hill, the 
 valley of the upper Hudson presents at one glance a scene of natural 
 beauty and active industry. At the north lies the busy city of Troy 
 with its cloud of smoke by day, and pillar of fire by night, indicating 
 the presence of enormous iron works, soon to be added to by the 
 immense establishment on Breaker island, near enough to interest but 
 not near enough to annoy. Southward, sitting upon her four sloping 
 hills the Capital city, crowned with the grandest and noblest of legis- 
 lative buildings, shows her domes and spires plainly against the sky ; 
 while still further southward rolls silently towards the sea, the Hudson 
 river, its bosom dotted here and there with swift sailing steamers, or 
 slowly moving tows ; its banks luxuriant with the products of the soil. 
 
 The walks about Menands are delightful, and one does not 
 become worn out in reaching them. If you are of pensive mood 
 a stroll of less tlian a mile northward leads to the Rural cemetery, 
 widely noted for its natural and acquired lovhness. It can also be 
 reached by the road westward, and passing through the southern en- 
 trance. This approach has the advantage of bringing one directly 
 
The Garden Subtwb of Albany and Troy. g 
 
 upon the most sightly section of the cemetery and the spot most in- 
 quired for, as upon it stands Palmer's grc.t work of art, "The An- 
 gel at the Sepulchre," admitted to be one of the finest pieces of 
 out-doors statuary in America. 
 
 From the southern entrance of the cemetery the Van Rensselaer 
 boulevard stretches southward to Albany, affording a drive or walk 
 along the ridge, from which the views are superb. It is on this 
 avenue that " Fritz Villa " the ^300,000 home of Joseph K. Emmet, 
 the actor, is situated. 
 
 Another pleasant walk is across the meadows to Island park, 
 through fields of melons, squashes, corn, etc., which grow luxuriantly 
 on the soil enriched each year by the overflow of the Hudson, and 
 worth ^1,000 an acre for market gardening. From the bridge 
 across an- arm of the Hudson, turn and look through the trees 
 towards Albany and admire, as you must, the view of the city and 
 the intervening fields, with the capitol looming up like a mountain 
 in the back-gr©und. The park itself, busy and noisy in race week, 
 is usually quiet and peaceful. It is well cared for, and a pretty stretch 
 of turf, over which it is a pleasure to walk, and especially delight- 
 ful is the path, under the giant trees, leading to the bank of the 
 main channel of the river. 
 
 Should a longer walk be desired, the ramble can be extended to 
 Pleasure island, a notable resort in the summer, from which the 
 music of a band, " by distance mellowed," floats dreamily in the air 
 each afternoon and evening. 
 
 Just south of Menands, on the Van Rensselaer estate and ad- 
 joining the Durant property, is a grove on high ground, where the 
 trees are not thick enough to prevent the grass from growing fresh 
 and green, presenting the appearance of a fine old English park, 
 while the views are similar to those just mentioned. 
 
 Near by is the Home for Aged Men, a quiet retreat for those who 
 are 
 
 Only waiting till the shadows 
 
 Are a little longer grown, 
 Only waiting till the glimmer 
 
 Of the day's last beam is gone. 
 
 The impression that one carries away from Menands is this : 
 Here is a place quiet enough for a home, with beautiful and health- 
 ful surroundings — yet so near to the busy world that one feels he is of 
 it, and yet not in it. Within sight, or almost within sight, are two 
 
lo A Home at Menands : 
 
 great cities, two railroads, the much traveled Troy road, a line of 
 horse cars, the steamboats of the Hudson and the trafific of the 
 Erie and Champlain canals. Life, activity, business, are close at 
 hand, forbidding all feeling of loneliness, and yet the retirement is as 
 perfect as in a country hamlet " twelve miles from a lemon," or forty 
 miles from any where. 
 
 * 
 
 Why, then, it may naturally be asked, with all these advantages, 
 has not Menands grown more rapidly? 
 
 The answer is not hard to find. The owners do not care to have 
 it grow. They are satisfied as it is, and building lots have not often 
 been for sale. 
 
 Recently a notable exception has been made. Part of the Dur- 
 ant estate lying within four minutes walk south of the station has 
 been laid out with a view to building. This property extends from 
 the Troy road, where it borders on the grounds of the Old Men's 
 Home, westward, nearly to the Van Rensselaer boulevard. In the 
 midst of a beautiful grove, in about the centre of the property is 
 situated " Brookside," the family residence. It takes its name from 
 a little streamlet that 
 
 — chatters, chatters as it flows 
 To join the brimming river, 
 
 tumbling down a wild and romantic ravine only a few rods west of 
 the house, then turning southward through a pasture and across the 
 Troy road, runs among the meadows to the Hudson. 
 
 It was the idea of the late Mrs. Durant, who resided in this 
 lovely spot, that it would be a pleasant thing to see growing up near 
 her a neighborhood of congenial people ; and with this end in view 
 she caused a map to be made of that part of the property east of 
 the grove to the Troy road, (see page ii) and the land to be laid out 
 in villa lots of half an acre or more, each. Through the centre, or 
 near the centre of this tract runs " Brookside avenue," the private 
 road, which bordered with trees, extends from the gate and little 
 lodge at the Troy road, back to the residence in the grove. This is 
 70 feet wide, including sidewalks outside the trees, and forms a no- 
 ble approach to the lots, as they all front on this avenue, extending 
 back from 135 to 260 feet on either side. Their width is from 65 
 to 75 feet. They are situated on both sides of the D. & H. railroad 
 track, and could not be better suitfed for building than they are. 
 
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12 A Home at Menands : 
 
 Four or five of these lots had been sold, and negotiations were 
 going on for others, when suddenly, without a moment's warning the 
 owner died, leaving the estate in such condition that until now, no 
 titles could be given, and of course, all sales stopped. Arrange- 
 ments have recently been made by which the lots will now be dis- 
 posed of to desirable purchasers.* 
 
 It is the intention of the heirs to carry out their mother's ideas 
 in regard to the little neighborhood as far as possible ; and the lots 
 will be sold subject to such simple restriction, as will serve that end. 
 Three tasteful cottages have already been built and occupied, and it 
 
 is likely a number more will be erected the coming summer. 
 
 * 
 
 The anxious seeker for a home, after investigating thus far, will 
 not as he goes back to the city, feel like settling down to his present 
 half-life without an earnest inquiry as to the possibility of something 
 better for himself and his family. He will find on reflection, that the 
 savings which he is so carefully putting away in the bank, are bring- 
 ing him very little return — possibly 3J per cent ; that is, on a thou- 
 sand, just $35 a year, with the prospect that it will be still less in 
 the future, as the banks find paying investments grow scarcer and 
 scarcer. Supposing he has saved ^4,000, the interest amounts to 
 ^140 a year. He is paying from I250 to ^300 for a very ordinary 
 rent subject to more annoyances than he and his wife can count. It 
 finally flashes upon him that with this ^4,000 or even $3,000 he can, 
 perhaps, own a cottage and garden of his own. 
 
 That thought is a revelation. What is the paltry $140 a year com- 
 pared with the enlargement of life that comes from the possession of 
 a real home with all the comforts that have only here been hinted at? 
 A home for which landlords and the first of May have no terrors ; a 
 home which it will be a constant delight to improve and beautify ; a 
 home which, come what may, is yours in sickness or health, a shelter, 
 a refuge and castle ; a home for which your true wife will bless you 
 all her days, and your children will remember, as you remember the 
 spot where you were born. 
 
 " But, suppose anything happens, and all my money is invested in 
 a house and lot, what then? Suppose I lose my income for any 
 cause ; suppose the bread-winner of the family is disabled, or taken 
 
 ♦Further particulars in relation to these lots can be had of Andrew W. Woolverton, 40 State 
 street, or Weir & Chism, 74 State street, Albany. 
 
The Garden Suburb of Albany and Troy. 
 
 13 
 
 Cottage Costing $3,500 — From "Artistic Homes.' 
 
 away by death?" — Well, the money has not been thrown away. If 
 the house is economically and honestly built at prevailing low prices, 
 there will always be one hundred cents to show for every dollar in- 
 vested, at least ; and there is every prospect that values in this lo- 
 cality will largely increase in the near future. Situated betweea two 
 great and growing cities, as near to one, practically, as to the other, 
 with the constant and increasing demand in both for homes like 
 these, such property certainly cannot depreciate ; while a house 
 not sold, could be rented a hundred times a year, at Menands, at lo 
 per cent, on its cost. The investment is safer, therefore, than any 
 bank, and pays better and is easily convertible. 
 
 But suppose the home-seeker doesn't have the ^4,000 or the 
 ^3,000? That is unfortunate, of course; but if he has a tolerably 
 certain income which warrants his paying ^300 rent in the city, and 
 has a thousand or more dollars ahead, the home is still possible ; for 
 with a cash payment for a lot it is comparatively easy to get the 
 house built, giving a mortgage therefor and paying it as fast as possi- 
 ble. The interest at 5 or 6 per cent., and the insurance and taxes 
 
 *This design and those on the cover o< this pamphlet, are used by kind permission of Fuller 
 & Wheeler, architects, Albany, N. Y. ; also publishers of " Artistic Homes," from which the 
 designs are taken. 
 
14 A Home at Menands : 
 
 (country rates) would not amount to as much as is paid out for 
 rent ; and the inducement thus created to save money, to resist the 
 temptations to spend it foohshly, is worth considerable. 
 
 It is possible, for ^3,000 to build and furnish neatly a cottage of 
 seven or eight rooms, heat them all with an improved heater, put in 
 hot and cold water, bath-room, water closet, etc., a bay-window, a 
 cellar under the entire house ; in short, make a home good enough 
 for anybody to live in, If the plumbing and heater are dispensed 
 
 with, it can be done for ^300 or ^400 less. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Once established at Menands, the expense of living is no greater 
 than in the city. 
 
 Car fare, by the very liberal arrangements of the Delaware & 
 Hudson Canal Company, is afforded at only six cents to or from 
 Albany, where ten tickets are bought at a time ; to and from Troy, in 
 the same way, seven cents. The Albany and West Troy horse cars 
 are also available, and are convenient when one happens to miss a 
 train and does not wish to wait an hour for the next one. The time 
 from the foot of State street, Albany, to Brookside avenue, Menands, 
 by horse cars is 35 minutes .; fare 8 cents. 
 
 Marketing is done at the door. So good a grocer as W. H. 
 Coughtry (corner Eagle and Hamilton streets, Albany), sends a 
 team once a week to take orders which are promptly filled the next 
 day. Meat is brought to the door three times, and fish, etc., once or 
 twice a week. Good and pure milk can be had of the neighbors. 
 Coal is delivered from Albany or West Troy at the same price asked 
 in either place. Ice can also be had, but with cool well water and 
 good cellars, it is not the necessary that it is in the city. 
 
 The mail is delivered twice a day by the Albany carriers. Tele- 
 phone connection can be had with Troy or Albany. 
 
 Water can be had for the digging, at from ten to fifteen feet be- 
 low the surface, and running water could, at no great expense, be in- 
 troduced in all the houses on the Durant estate, from a reservoir on 
 the hill. Meantime, the system of Philadelphia gutters in the roof, 
 which convey the rain water to a tank in the attic, the overflow going 
 to a cistern in the cellar, combined with the sub-surface irrigation 
 method of disposing of the sewage, answers all purposes. 
 
 The objection of servant girls to living in the country does not 
 apply, for there are enough of them already, not to find it lonesome. 
 
The Garden Suburb of Albany and Troy. 15 
 
 while the conveniences for going to church, and transportation for 
 their friends are just as open to them as to anybody. 
 
 A good common school is taught only a little way from the sta- 
 tion ; but many prefer to send their children to the city, and under 
 the careful eyes of the conductors they ride too and fro in perfect 
 safety, and at small expense. 
 
 Religious privileges at Menands include an active and flourishing 
 mission at the school house, in which Messrs. Dickson, Sliter, Water- 
 man, and others, are deeply interested. Connected with it are a Sun- 
 day school, regular prayer-meeting, Chautauqua Literary Circle, etc., 
 with preaching quite frequently. (Steps are being taken to convert 
 the mission into a church, which will no doubt be done at an early 
 day.) There is also preaching by the city pastors about every other 
 Sunday, at the Old Men's Home, to which the neighbors are always 
 welcome. The trains run on Sunday morning on purpose to accom- 
 modate church-goers, and the horse cars run at frequent intervals all 
 day Sunday and in the evening. 
 
 Of course, objections can be raised to any place on earth, the 
 Garden of Eden not excepted. We all remember the man who 
 complained of a place, that he couldn't sleep in it, because of the 
 noise of the nightingales ; and for such troubles there is no cure, 
 and for such complainers no happiness. 
 
 " Yes ; it is all very well in summer, no doubt ; but in winter — .'' 
 How many will say this, and think all they say and a great deal more. 
 No place in this climate is as pleasant in the winter as it is in the 
 spring, summer and autumn, but fortunately this arrangement is as 
 three to one. The difference, however, between the city and the sub- 
 urb in the matter of comfort in the winter, is greatly in the imagina- 
 tion. A warm house is needed in both places ; and it can be had. 
 Plenty of coal is needed in both places ; and it costs no more in the 
 one than in the other. Roads are quickly broken in both places, 
 and while the snow is not so thoroughly removed in the suburb as in 
 the city, neither is the sidewalk of earth such a snare and a pitfall as are 
 flags and bricks. How can any one, compelled to climb up and 
 clamber down the slippery sidewalks of the hills of Albany, imagine 
 anything more disagreeable or more dangerous to the pedestrian ? 
 Broken bones lurk in every rod. 
 
 All the pleasures of winter are enhanced rather than diminished 
 at Menands. It was on the Menand road that the peculiarly Al- 
 
1 6 A Home at Menands. 
 
 banian pastime of " bobbing " first received an impetus, and here 
 nature has provided, free to all, toboggan slides more desirable and 
 less dangerous than those in the city. The canal affords the best of 
 skating and a favorite place for speeding horses. Theatres, concerts, 
 lectures, etc., are made convenient by return trains on the belt line at 
 lo and II o'clock, and by a recent arrangement the ii 130 D. & H. 
 express going north has orders to stop at Menands to let off passen- 
 gers who notify the conductor to that effect. This road has adopted 
 a most liberal policy, granting every reasonable request for accommo- 
 dation that has been made, and no doubt, as the place grows and 
 travel increases, these facilities will be still further increased. No one 
 need give up acquaintance, church, society, lodge or club by remov- 
 ing to Menands. 
 
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