RURAL COMMUNITY BUILDINGS. 11 



Under the management of the directors a series of high-class enter- 

 tainments at low cost has been given. Folk dances and lawn parties 

 have been featured. Officials say the building stimulates idealism, 

 fosters local pride, and prevents deterioration of town morals. 



THE MATINECOCK NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE, LOCUST VALLEY, LONG ISLAND. 



About eight years ago a boy came to the secretary of the Matine- 

 cock Neighborhood Association and asked him to start a boys' club, 

 saying that there was no place for the boys to go for a good time 

 except to the saloons or to the neighboring town with its c[uestionable 

 amusements. The secretary, who had but recently arrived, made a 

 survey of the situation. He found that through economic changes, 

 farming was gradually being given up and the section was becoming 

 a residential one. The population was shifting, and neighborhood 

 spirit and community recreation were at a low ebb. 



He found also that there was in the village a private unsupervised 

 young men's athletic club which met in a blacksmith's shop. Being a 

 man of vision, he determined to make this club a nucleus of a general 

 system of supervised recreation for the village with a community 

 house as a center. 



He persuaded the athletic club to sign a petition for the Neighbor- 

 hood Association to take them in as members on payment of the regu- 

 lar dues, $1 per year, and then to commission them as a recreation 

 department to furnish recreation for the whole community. The 

 association complied and appointed an executive committee, com- 

 posed of two of its directors and five young men, to have charge of the 

 arrangements. Twenty-nine boys were appointed on committees in 

 order to give them a share in the constructive work. 



Temporary quarters were secured in an old barn, which was fitted 

 up through general contributions, including a graphophone, a piano, 

 a pool table, stoves, dishes, an indoor baseball outfit, $137 in cash, 

 a,ncl subscriptions for many magazines. Boy Scouts and a band 

 were soon organized, and other organizations were formed. 



As a result, it was soon found that 148 young men were governing 

 themselves, financing their own enterprise through, various enter- 

 tainments, and providing social opportunities and athletics for their 

 fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. At the same time they were 

 members of the Neighborhood Association, with votes on all ques- 

 tions pertaining to it. 



The barn soon became too small for these various activities. This 

 brought to the front a question which had been under consideration 

 for some time, the erection of a community building. It was finally 

 decided that a building should be erected which would be the head- 

 quarters of the Neighborhood Association, with its membership of 



