Ithaca, New York

Cascadilla Creek gorge

Native Americans lived in this area for thousands of years. When discovered by Europeans, this area was controlled by the Cayuga tribe of Indians, one of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League. Jesuit missionaries from New France (Quebec) are said to have had a mission to convert the Cayuga as early as 1657.[8]

Saponi and Tutelo peoples, Siouan-speaking tribes, later occupied lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake. Dependent tributaries of the Cayuga, they had been permitted to settle on the tribe's hunting lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake, as well as in Pony (originally Sapony) Hollow of what is known as present-day Newfield, New York. Remnants of these tribes had been forced from Virginia and North Carolina by tribal conflicts and European colonial settlement. Similarly, the Tuscarora people, an Iroquoian-speaking tribe from the Carolinas, migrated after defeat in the Yamasee War; they settled with the Oneida people and became the sixth nation of the Haudenosaunee, with chiefs stating the migration was complete in 1722.

Perspective map of Ithaca published in 1882

During the Revolutionary War, four of the then six Iroquois nations helped the British attempt to crush the revolution, although bands made decisions on fighting in a highly decentralized way. Conflict with the rebel colonists was fierce throughout the Mohawk Valley and western New York. In retaliation for conflicts to the east and resentment at the savage way in which the Iroquois made war, the 1779 Sullivan Expedition was conducted against the Iroquois in the west of the state, destroying more than 40 villages and stored winter crops and forcing their retreat from the area.[9] It destroyed the Tutelo village of Coregonal, located near what is now the junction of state routes 13 and 13A just south of the Ithaca city limits. Most Iroquois were forced from the state after the Revolutionary War, but some remnants remained. The state sold off the former Iroquois lands to stimulate development and settlement by Americans; lands were also granted as payment to veterans of the war.

Within the current boundaries of the City of Ithaca, Native Americans maintained only a temporary hunting camp at the base of Cascadilla Gorge. In 1788, eleven men from Kingston, New York came to the area with two Delaware people (Lenape) guides, to explore what they considered wilderness. The following year Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond, and Peter Hinepaw returned with their families and constructed log cabins.[8] That same year Abraham Bloodgood of Albany obtained a patent from the state for 1,400 acres, which included all of the present downtown west of Tioga Street.[10] In 1790, the federal government and state began an official program to grant land in the area, known as the Central New York Military Tract, as payment for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War, as the government was cash poor. Most local land titles trace back to these Revolutionary war grants.

As part of this process, the Central New York Military Tract, which included northern Tompkins County, was surveyed by Simeon De Witt, Bloodgood's son-in-law. De Witt was also the nephew of Governor George Clinton. The Commissioners of Lands of New York State (chairman Gov. George Clinton) met in 1790. The Military Tract township in which proto-Ithaca was located was named the Town of Ulysses. A few years later De Witt moved to Ithaca, then called variously "The Flats," "The City," or "Sodom";[8][11] he renamed it for the Greek island home of Ulysses in the spirit of the multitude of settlement names in the region derived from classical literature, such as Aurelius, Ovid, and especially of Ulysses, New York, the town that contained Ithaca at the time.[9]

Around 1791 De Witt surveyed what is now the downtown area into lots and sold them at modest prices. That same year John Yaple built a grist mill on Cascadilla Creek. The first frame house was erected in 1800 by Abram Markle.[8] In 1804 the village had a postmaster and in 1805 a tavern.[12]

Ithaca became a transshipping point for salt from curing beds near Salina, New York to buyers south and east. This prompted construction in 1810 of the Owego Turnpike.[12] When the War of 1812 cut off access to Nova Scotia gypsum, used for fertilizer, Ithaca became the center of trade in Cayuga gypsum.[10] The Cayuga Steamboat Company was organized in 1819 and in 1820 launched the first steamboat on Cayuga Lake, the Enterprise.[10] In 1821, the village was incorporated at the same time the Town of Ithaca was organized and separated from the parent Town of Ulysses. In 1834, the Ithaca and Owego Railroad's first horse-drawn train began service,[9] connecting traffic on the east–west Erie Canal (completed in 1825) with the Susquehanna River to the south to expand the trade network.

With the depression of 1837, the railroad was re-organized as the Cayuga & Susquehanna. It was re-engineered with switchbacks in the late 1840s; in the late 20th century a short section of this route in the city and town of Ithaca was used for the South Hill Recreation Way.

However, easier railroad routes were constructed, such as that of the Syracuse, Binghamton & New York (1854). In the decade following the Civil War, railroads were built from Ithaca to surrounding points (Geneva; Cayuga; Cortland; and Elmira, New York; and Athens, Pennsylvania), mainly with financing from Ezra Cornell. The geography of the city, on a steep hill by the lake, has prevented it from being directly connected to a major transportation artery. When the Lehigh Valley Railroad built its main line from Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York in 1890, it bypassed Ithaca (running via eastern Schuyler County on easier grades), as the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad had done in the 1850s.

Ithaca Gun Co. - Annie Oakley gun, 1916

In the late 19th century, more industry developed in Ithaca. In 1883 William Henry Baker and his partners started the Ithaca Gun Company, making shotguns. The original factory was located in the Fall Creek neighborhood of the city, on a slope later known as Gun Hill, where the nearby waterfall supplied the main source of energy for the plant. The company became an icon in the hunting and shooting world, its shotguns famous for their fine decorative work. Wooden gunstocks with knots or other imperfections were donated to the high school woodworking shop to be made into lamps.[13] John Philip Sousa and trick-shooter Annie Oakley favored Ithaca guns. In 1937 the company began producing the Ithaca 37, based on a 1915 patent by noted firearms designer John Browning. Its 12-gauge shotguns were the standard used for decades by the New York City Police Department and Los Angeles Police Department.[14]

In 1885, Ithaca Children's Home was established on West Seneca Street. The orphanage had two programs at the time: a residential home for both orphaned and destitute children, and a day nursery.[15] The village established its first trolley in 1887. Ithaca developed as a small manufacturing and retail center and was incorporated as a city in 1888. The largest industrial company in the area was Morse Chain, elements of which were absorbed into Emerson Power Transmission on South Hill and Borg Warner Automotive in Lansing, New York.

Ithaca claims to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae, created in 1892 when fountain shop owner Chester Platt "served his local priest vanilla ice cream covered in cherry syrup with a dark candied cherry on top. The priest suggested the dessert be named after the day, Sunday—although the spelling was later changed out of fear some would find it offensive."[16] The local Unitarian church, where the priest, Rev. John Scott, preached, has an annual "Sundae Sunday" every September in commemoration.[11][17] Ithaca's claim has long been disputed by Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Also in 1892, the Ithaca Kitty became one of the first mass-produced stuffed animal toys in the United States.[18]

State Street in Ithaca, ca. 1901

In 1903 a typhoid epidemic, resulting from poor sanitation infrastructure, devastated the city. One out of ten citizens fell ill or died.

In 1900 Cornell anatomy professor G.S. Moler made an early movie using frame-by-frame technology. For The Skeleton Dance, he took single-frame photos of a human skeleton in varying positions, giving the illusion of a dancing skeleton. During the early 20th century, Ithaca was an important center in the silent film industry. These films often featured the local natural scenery. Many of these films were the work of Leopold Wharton and his brother Theodore; their studio was on the site of what is now Stewart Park.[11]

The Star Theatre on East Seneca Street was built in 1911 and became the most popular vaudeville venue in the region. Wharton movies were also filmed and shown there.[19] After the film industry centralized in Hollywood, production in Ithaca effectively ceased. Few of the silent films made in Ithaca have been preserved.

After World War II, the Langmuir Research Labs of General Electric developed as a major employer; the defense industry continued to expand. GE's headquarters were in Schenectady, New York, to the east in the Mohawk Valley.

Ithaca Commons west entrance at Cayuga Street

For decades, the Ithaca Gun Company tested their shotguns behind the plant on Lake Street; the shot fell into the Fall Creek gorge at the base of Ithaca Falls. Lead accumulated in the soil in and around the factory and gorge. A major lead clean-up effort sponsored by the United States Superfund took place from 2002 to 2004, managed through the Environmental Protection Agency.[20] The old Ithaca Gun building has been dismantled. It was scheduled to be replaced by development of an apartment complex on the cleaned land.

The former Morse Chain company factory on South Hill, now owned by Emerson Power Transmission, was the site of extensive groundwater and soil contamination from its industrial operations.[21] Emerson Power Transmission has been working with the state and South Hill residents to determine the extent and danger of the contamination and aid in cleanup.

In 2004, Gayraud Townsend, a 20-year-old senior in Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, was sworn in as alderman of the city council, the first black male to be elected to the council and the youngest African American to be elected to office in the United States.[22] He served his full term and has mentored other student politicians.[23] In 2011 Cornell Class of 2009 graduate Svante Myrick was elected as the youngest mayor of the city of Ithaca.[24]

Hemlock Gorge along Fall Creek before emptying into Beebe Lake on Cornell's campus

The valley in which Cayuga Lake is located is long and narrow with a north–south orientation. Ithaca is located at the southern end (the "head") of the lake, but the valley continues to the southwest behind the city. Originally a river valley, it was deepened and widened by the action of Pleistocene ice sheets over the last several hundred thousand years. The lake, which drains to the north, formed behind a dam of glacial moraine. The rock is predominantly Devonian and, north of Ithaca, is relatively fossil rich. Glacial erratics can be found in the area. The world-renowned fossils found in this area can be examined at the Museum of the Earth.

Ithaca was founded on flat land just south of the lake—land that formed in fairly recent geological times when silt filled the southern end of the lake. The city ultimately spread to the adjacent hillsides, which rise several hundred feet above the central flats: East Hill, West Hill, and South Hill. Its sides are fairly steep, and a number of the streams that flow into the valley from east or west have cut deep canyons, usually with several waterfalls.

The natural vegetation of the Ithaca area, seen in areas unbuilt and not been farmed on, is northern temperate broadleaf forest, dominated by deciduous trees.

According to the Köppen climate classification method, Ithaca experiences a warm-summer humid continental climate, also known as a hemiboreal climate (Dfb). Summers are warm but brief, and it is cool-to-cold the rest of the year, with long, snowy winters; an average of 67 in (170 cm) of snow falls per year. In addition, frost may occur any time of year except mid-summer.

Winter is typically characterized by freezing temperatures, cloudy skies, and light-to-moderate snows, with some heavier falls; the largest snowfall in one day was 26.0 in (66 cm) on February 14, 1914. But the season is also variable; there can be short mild periods with some rain, but also outbreaks of frigid air with night temperatures down to −10 °F (−23 °C) or lower. Summers usually bring sunshine, along with moderate heat and humidity, but also frequent afternoon thunderstorms. Nights are pleasant and sometimes cool. Occasionally, there can be heatwaves, with temperatures rising into the 90 °F (32 °C) to 95 °F (35 °C) range, but they tend to be brief.

The average date of the first freeze is October 5, and the average date of the last freeze is May 15, giving Ithaca a growing season of 141 days. The average date of the first and last snowfalls are November 12 and April 7, respectively. Extreme temperatures range from −25 °F (−32 °C) as recently as February 2, 1961 up to 103 °F (39 °C) on July 9, 1936.[25]

The valley flatland has slightly cooler weather in winter, and occasionally Ithaca residents experience simultaneous snow on the hills and rain in the valley. The phenomenon of mixed precipitation (rain, wind, and snow), common in the late fall and early spring, is known tongue-in-cheek as ithacation to many of the local residents.[26]

Due to the microclimates created by the impact of the lakes, the region surrounding Ithaca (Finger Lakes American Viticultural Area) experiences a short but adequate growing season for winemaking similar to the Rhine Valley wine district of Germany. As such, the region is home to many wineries.

The term "Greater Ithaca" encompasses both the City and Town of Ithaca, as well as several smaller settled places within or adjacent to the Town:

Municipalities

Census-designated places

Politically, the majority of city's voters (many of them students) have supported liberalism and the Democratic Party. A November 2004 study by ePodunk lists it as New York's most liberal city.[34] This contrasts with the more conservative leanings of the generally rural Upstate New York region; the city's voters are also more liberal than those in the rest of Tompkins County. In 2008, Barack Obama, running against New York State's US Senator Hillary Clinton, won Tompkins County in the Democratic Presidential Primary, the only county that he won in New York State.[35] Obama won Tompkins County (including Ithaca) by a wide margin of 41% over his opponent John McCain in the November 2008 election.

• Ithaca is a sister city of:

City	County/District/Province/Region/State	Country	Date
Eldoret	Uasin Gishu County	Kenya	2007 [36]

Ithaca is a major educational center in Central New York. The two major post-secondary educational institutions located in Ithaca were each founded in the late nineteenth century. In 1865, Ezra Cornell founded Cornell University, which overlooks the town from East Hill. It was opened as a coeducational institution. Women first enrolled in 1870. Ezra Cornell also established a public library for the city. Ithaca College was founded as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892.[37] Ithaca College was originally located in the downtown area, but relocated to South Hill in the 1960s. In 2018 there were 23,600 students enrolled at Cornell and 6,700 at Ithaca College.[38] Tompkins Cortland Community College is located in the neighboring town of Dryden, and has an extension center in downtown Ithaca. Empire State College offers non-traditional college courses to adults in downtown Ithaca.

The Ithaca City School District, based in Ithaca, encompasses the city and its surrounding area and enrolls about 5,500 K-12 students in eight elementary schools (roughly one for every neighborhood, i.e., Cayuga Heights, Fall Creek, etc.), two middle schools (Boynton and Dewitt), Ithaca High School, and the Lehman Alternative Community School, a combined middle and high school. Several private elementary and secondary schools are located in the Ithaca area, including the Roman Catholic Immaculate Conception School, the Cascadilla School, the New Roots Charter School, the Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School, the Namaste Montessori School (in the Trumansburg area), and the Ithaca Waldorf School. Ithaca has two networks for supporting its home-schooling families: Loving Education At Home (LEAH) and the Northern Light Learning Center (NLLC). TST BOCES is located in Tompkins County.

Tompkins County Public Library

The Tompkins County Public Library, located at 101 East Green Street, serves as the public library for Tompkins County and is the Central Library for the Finger Lakes Library System. The library serves over 37,000 registered borrowers and contains 250,000 items in its circulating collection.[39]

Ithaca is known for its small independent dairy farms.

Ithaca, home to the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has a deep connection to Central New York's farming and dairy industries. About 60 small farms are located in the greater Ithaca/Trumansburg area,[44] including a number of research farms managed by the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station.[45] Cornell's Dairy Research Facility is a center of research and support for New York's large and growing milk and yogurt industries.[46]

Ithaca is the home of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra.

The Cornell Concert Series[57] has been hosting musicians and ensembles of international stature since 1903. For its initial 84 years, the series featured Western classical artists exclusively. In 1987, however, the series broke with tradition to present Ravi Shankar and has since grown to encompass a broader spectrum of the world's great musics. Now, it balances of a mix of Western classical music, traditions from around the world, jazz, and new musics in these genres. In a single season, Cornell Concert Series presents performers ranging from the Leipzig Tomanerchor and Danish Quartet to Simon Shaheen, Vida Guitar Quartet, and Eighth Blackbird.[58]

The School of Music at Ithaca College was founded in 1892 by William Egbert as a music conservatory on Buffalo Street. Among the degree programs offered are those in Performance, Theory, Music Education, and Composition. Since 1941, the School of Music has been accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.[59]

Ithaca's Suzuki school, Ithaca Talent Education, provides musical training for children of all ages and also teacher training for undergraduate and graduate-level students. The Community School of Music and Art uses an extensive scholarship system to offer classes and lessons to any student, regardless of age, background, economic status, or artistic ability.[60]

A number of musicians call Ithaca home, most notably Samite of Uganda, The Burns Sisters, The Horse Flies, Johnny Dowd, Mary Lorson, cellist Hank Roberts, reggae band John Brown's Body, Kurt Riley, X Ambassadors, and Alex Kresovich. Old-time music is a staple and folk music is featured weekly on WVBR-FM's Bound for Glory, North America's longest-running live folk concert broadcast. The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance, hosted by local band Donna the Buffalo, is held annually during the third week in July in the nearby village of Trumansburg, with more than 60 local, national and international acts.

Ithaca is the center of a thriving live music scene, featuring over 200 groups playing most genres of American popular music, the predominant genres being Folk, Rock, Blues, Jazz, and Country.[61] There are over 80 live music venues within a 40-mile radius of the city, including cafes, pubs, clubs, and concert halls.[61]

A TCAT bus

Route 13 in Ithaca as photographed for an image included on the Voyager Golden Record

Ithaca is in the rural Finger Lakes region about 225 miles (362 km) northwest of New York City; the nearest larger cities, Binghamton and Syracuse, are an hour's drive away by car, Rochester and Scranton are two hours, Buffalo and Albany are three. New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Ottawa are about four hours away.

Ithaca lies at over a half hour's drive from any interstate highway, and all car trips to Ithaca involve some driving on two-lane state rural highways. The city is at the convergence of many regional two-lane state highways: Routes 13, 13A, 34, 79, 89, 96, 96B, and 366. These are usually not congested except in Ithaca proper. However, Route 79 between the I-81 access at Whitney Point and Ithaca receives a significant amount of Ithaca-bound congestion right before Ithaca's colleges reopen after breaks.

In July 2008, a non-profit called Ithaca Carshare began a carsharing service in Ithaca. Ithaca Carshare has a fleet of vehicles shared by over 1500 members as of July 2015 and has become a popular service among both city residents and the college communities. Vehicles are located throughout Ithaca downtown and the two major institutions. With Ithaca Carshare as the first locally run carsharing organization in New York State, others have since launched in Buffalo, Albany, NY, and Syracuse.

Rideshare services to promote carpooling and vanpooling are operated by ZIMRIDE and VRIDE. A community mobility education program, Way2Go is operated by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. Way2Go's website provides consumer information and videos. Way2Go works collaboratively to help people save money, stress less, go green and improve mobility options.[64] The 2-1-1 Tompkins/Cortland Help line connects people with services, including transportation, in the community, by telephone and web on a 24/7 basis. The information and referral service is operated by the Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County, Inc. Together, 2-1-1 Information and Referral and Way2Go are a one-call, one-click resource designed to mobility services information for Ithaca and throughout Tompkins County.

As a growing urban area, Ithaca is facing steady increases in levels of vehicular traffic on the city grid and on the state highways. Outlying areas have limited bus service, and many people consider a car essential. However, many consider Ithaca a walkable and bikeable community. One positive trend for the health of downtown Ithaca is the new wave of increasing urban density in and around the Ithaca Commons. Because the downtown area is the region's central business district, dense mixed-use development that includes housing may increase the proportion of people who can walk to work and recreation, and mitigate the likely increased pressure on already busy roads as Ithaca grows. The downtown area is also the area best served by frequent public transportation. Still, traffic congestion around the Commons is likely to progressively increase.

There is frequent intercity bus service by Greyhound Lines, New York Trailways, OurBus, and Shortline (Coach USA), particularly to Binghamton and New York City, with limited service to Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse, and (via connections in Binghamton) to Utica and Albany. OurBus also provides limited holiday services to Allentown, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Cornell University runs a premium campus to campus bus between its Ithaca campus and its medical school in Manhattan, New York City which is open to the public. Starting September 2019, intercity buses serving Ithaca operated from the downtown bus stop at 131 East Green Street, as the former Greyhound bus station on West State Street closed due to staff retirement and building maintenance issues.[65][66][67]

Ithaca is the center of an extensive bus public transportation network. Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, Inc. (TCAT, Inc.) is a not-for-profit corporation that provides public transportation for Tompkins County, New York. TCAT was reorganized as a non-profit corporation in 2004 and is primarily supported locally by Cornell University, the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County. TCAT's ridership increased from 2.7 million in 2004 to 4.4 million in 2013.[68] TCAT operates 34 routes, many running seven days a week. It has frequent service to downtown, Cornell University, Ithaca College, and the Shops at Ithaca Mall in the Town of Lansing, but less frequent service to many residential and rural areas, including Trumansburg and Newfield. Chemung County Transit (C-TRAN) runs weekday commuter service from Chemung County to Ithaca. Cortland Transit runs commuter service to Cornell University. Tioga County Public Transit operates three routes to Ithaca and Cornell, but will cease operating on November 30, 2014.

GADABOUT Transportation Services, Inc. provides demand-response paratransit service for seniors over 60 and people with disabilities. Ithaca Dispatch provides local and regional taxi service. In addition, Ithaca Airline Limousine and IthaCar Service connect to the local airports.

Ithaca is served by Ithaca Tompkins International Airport, located about three miles to the northeast of the city center. In late 2019 the airport completed a major $34.8 million renovation which included a larger terminal with additional passenger gates and jet bridges, expanded passenger amenities, and a 5,000 square feet (460 m²) customs facility that enables it to receive international charter and private flights.[69]

American Eagle offers daily flights to its hub at Philadelphia, and weekly service to its Charlotte hub, both operated by Piedmont Airlines using Embraer ERJ-145 airliners. Delta Connection provides service to its hub at Detroit Metro airport, operated by SkyWest Airlines using Bombardier CRJ-200 airliners. United Express offers two daily flights to Washington Dulles International Airport, operated by CommutAir using the Embraer ERJ-145.

Lehigh Valley Railroad station, with modern refurbishment

Into the mid-twentieth century, it was possible to reach Ithaca by passenger rail. Two trains per day serviced Ithaca along either the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad or the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The trip took "about seven hours" from New York City, "about eight hours" from Philadelphia, and "about three hours" from Buffalo.[70] There has been no passenger rail service since 1961. From the 1870s through 1961 there were trains to Buffalo via Geneva, New York; to New York City via Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (Lehigh Valley Railroad) and (until the 1940s) Scranton, Pennsylvania (DL&W); to Auburn, New York via Cayuga Junction (Lehigh Valley RR) until the latter 1940s; and to the US northeast via Cortland, New York[71][72][73] The Lehigh Valley's top New York City-Ithaca-Buffalo passenger train, the Black Diamond, was optimistically publicized as 'The Handsomest Train in the World', perhaps to compensate for its roundabout route to Buffalo. It was named after the railroad's largest commodity, anthracite coal.

Into the early 1940s, the Lackawanna Railroad operated two shuttle trains a day south to Owego, where passengers could transfer to trains to Buffalo and Chicago to the west and eastbound to Hoboken across from New York City.[74] Until 1958, the Lackawanna maintained Syracuse - Binghamton service through nearby Cortland to the east.[75] Until 1958, two Lehigh Valley trains a day made west-bound stops in Ithaca, and three trains a day made the station stops east-bound for New York City.[76] The last train passenger train making stops in Ithaca was the Lehigh's Maple Leaf, discontinued on February 1, 1961.[77][78]

Within Ithaca, electric railways ran along Stewart Avenue and Eddy Street.[70] In fact, Ithaca was the fourth community in New York state with a street railway; streetcars ran from 1887 to summer 1935.[79][80]

A Norfolk Southern locomotive

In 2019 the Ithaca Central Railroad, a Watco subsidiary, took over the operation of the Norfolk Southern Ithaca Secondary line from Sayre, Pennsylvania to the Lake Ridge site of the AES Cayuga, a coal power plant (known as Milliken Station during NYSEG ownership). Unit trains of coal, delivered at Sayre, Pennsylvania from the Norfolk Southern are now rare. The main traffic is salt from the Cargill salt mine on the east shore of Cayuga Lake near Myers Point. The Norfolk Southern tracks headed north on the Auburn and Ithaca Branch, include in Ithaca a distinctive section that runs along the side of Fulton St. (NY13 southbound), although not in the street itself.