On the east bank of the Hudson, in old Greene Bosch, opposite the city, decays the dishonored ruin of Fort Crailo. The date, more or less mythical, is 1642. It was the headquarters of General Abercrombie, and in the garden back of the house a derisive British surgeon, Dr. Stackpole, composed the immortal jingle of Yankee Doodle. If, in 1800, one stood on the southeast corner of State and North Pearl Streets, opposite the famous elm which Philip Livingston planted in 1735, his eye glancing up the street to the north would be arrested by a picturesque relic of Dutch Albany, the Vanderheyden Palace. Of course it has joined the departed, but its ghost appears in Washington Irving’s _Bracebridge Hall_, and its old weather-vane now swings above the porch of Sunnyside. Some of the colonial structures were fine and famous in their day, but in truth, in our American towns, imposing architecture is a thing of recent date. Few cities give more favorable sites for architectural effects than the three hills of Albany. It is not too much to say that the wealth and taste of its citizens have conspired with its peculiar advantages of position. The architecture of Albany has an exceptional value. The City Hall, with its Romanesque doorways and majestic campanile, is a fine specimen of the great Richardson. The Albany City Savings Bank, recently constructed, is a classical gem, inadequately set, but cut by a master hand. Its Corinthian monoliths and graceful dome satisfy the eye, and the whole structure is a suggestive instance of what trade can do in the interests of art. [Illustration: WEST SIDE OF PEARL ST. FROM STATE ST. TO MAIDEN LANE, 1814. 1. VANDERHEYDEN HOUSE. 2. PRUYN HOUSE. 3. DR. WOODRUFF’S HOUSE. (FROM A WATER-COLOR SKETCH BY JAMES EIGHTS.)] The four examples of ecclesiastical architecture of more than local interest are the North Dutch Church, an exceptionally good specimen of the style which obtained in the beginning of the century; the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, with its lofty double spires emphasized by the site, and its spacious interior treated with taste and dignity; St. Peter’s Church, with its noble lines, artistic windows and finely detailed tower,—“one of the richest specimens of French Gothic in this country”; and the Cathedral of All Saints, whose unfinished exterior encloses columnar effects and a choir-vista which remind one of an impressive mediæval interior and give the edifice a distinctive place among the churches of America. [Illustration: VIEW OF ALBANY, 1899.]