Railroad Stations: Corner of W. Buffalo St. and Taughannock Blvd. for Lehigh Valley R.R. (ticket office also at 300 E.State St.); 710 W.State St. for Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R.R.
Bus Station: Green St. between Cayuga and Tioga Sts. for Greyhound, Giddings, and Geneva Bus Lines.
Airport: Municipal Airport, 1 m. NW. on Taughannock Blvd.; no scheduled service; flying instruction and local flights.
Taxis: 50¢ each for 1 or 2 passengers; 25¢ for each additional passenger.
Street Busses: 10¢; 12 tokens for $1.
Accommodations: 13 hotels; tourist homes.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce and Ithaca Automobile Club, 211 E. Seneca St.
Radio Station: WHCU (850 kc.).
Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Willard Straight Theater, Cornell University; 3 motion picture houses.
Golf: Newman Municipal Golf Course, foot of Willow Ave., 9 holes, 25¢.
Tennis: Stewart Park, foot of N. Cayuga St., free.
Swimming: Stewart Park, locker 10¢, suits rented; Beebe Lake, Cornell University campus, 10¢.
ITHACA (900 alt., 19,647 pop.), seat of Tompkins County, college town, and one of the principal gateways to the Finger Lakes region, fills the flat plain at the head of Cayuga Lake and climbs the steep slopes of the surrounding hills. From the business section, centered on State Street at the foot of East Hill, the city spreads out in modest residential streets.
Fall, Cascadilla, and Six Mile Creeks plunge down the deep, picturesque gorges that they have cut for themselves in the side of East Hill, and flow through the town. On the brow of East Hill, bordered by Fall and Cascadilla Creeks, is the elm-shaded campus of Cornell University. To the north is the incorporated village of Cayuga Heights, a residential district of new homes built on the hillside overlooking the far-winding lake.
While the city has several industries, essentially it is a college town, its chief economic activity consisting of supplying the needs of the more than 7,000 students and teachers of Cornell University and Ithaca College. The ‘busy season’ coincides with the academic year. The demands and activities of its college communities supply Ithaca with much better cultural, social, and recreational resources than are normally found in a city of its size.
Detachments of General John Sullivan’s expedition crossed the site of Ithaca in September 1779, and burned Indian cornfields and orchards. The first settlers came in 1788 and 1789; but when the site was included within the Military Tract and title given to Revolutionary veterans, these pioneers were obliged to move on. The land was acquired by Simeon De Witt, surveyor-general of New York State, who gave the place its name. Solid growth began after the opening of Cornell University in 1868. In 1888 Ithaca became a city and turned to civic problems—streets, water, lighting, streetcars, traffic regulation, and social service. Members of the Cornell faculty have participated actively in city affairs.
For several years beginning in 1914 Ithaca was a center of the motion picture industry. Dear Old Girl of Mine, a picture of college life starring Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne, and Exploits of Elaine, with Lionel Barrymore and Pearl White, were filmed with Ithaca and Cornell University backgrounds.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Cornell University, entrances on Stewart Ave., Eddy St., College Ave., and Thurston Ave., occupies a campus of 1,378 acres overlooking the city of Ithaca and Cayuga Lake. The campus has been called one of the most attractively situated in the country. The appropriateness of the Cornell Alma Mater, ‘Far above Cayuga’s Waters,’ can be appreciated only after one has stood at one of the vantage points on the campus and looked down on the blue-green waters of the winding lake, with green and brown checkerboard fields rising up the slope of West Hill, or, better still, caught a sunset over the lake, its waters reflecting the roseate hues of the barred clouds. At night the depths of the gorges take on a mysterious blackness, the lights of Ithaca sparkle in rectangular rows in the dell below, and along West Hill the headlights of moving automobiles glitter through the trees.
The cosmopolitan community of about 7,000, including representatives from every section of the United States and many foreign countries, is in many respects self-contained, with its own theater, concerts, exhibitions, lectures, athletic games, periodicals, daily newspaper, store, and restaurants. Sixty fraternities and 14 sororities provide lodging for about 1,500 students, and the dormitories accommodate about 1,500 more; others live in private lodging houses near the campus. The outstanding social events of the year are Junior Week, during the second week of February, which is climaxed by the Junior Prom; and Spring Day, a traditional holiday usually celebrated on the third Saturday in May with a student carnival and intercollegiate boat races on Cayuga Lake.
The origin of Cornell University goes back to the meeting in Albany in 1864 of Ezra Cornell, State senator and chairman of the committee on agriculture, and Andrew Dickson White, State senator and chairman of the committee on education. The two men pushed through the legislature a bill awarding the entire land grant assigned to the State under the Morrill Act of 1862 to a new institution to be located in Ithaca and to be named for Ezra Cornell. Cornell gave the university 200 acres of land for a campus site and $500,000 in cash; and he bought from the State, in trust, the unsold land scrip, located lands with great care, and by his skillful management enormously increased the endowment derived from that source. The university was chartered in 1865 and opened in 1868.
The institution as organized expressed the interest of Ezra Cornell in the teaching of mechanics and the useful arts and of Andrew D. White in the teaching of modern history, languages, and literature by the side of the classics, and the preference of both men for coeducation and nonsectarian control. The College of Civil Engineering was established in 1868; the present College of Engineering comprises schools of civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering. The Law School was established in 1887; Veterinary Medicine, the first State-supported college, in 1896. The Medical College, the main unit of which is in New York City, was organized in 1898 and in 1927 combined with the New York Hospital to form the East Side Medical Center. In 1904 the State undertook the support of the College of Agriculture; the College of Home Economics was separately established in 1925. The three State colleges are financed by the State and administered by the university; tuition is free to residents of New York State.
The university with its nine colleges has come close to realizing the aim of Ezra Cornell to ‘found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.’ It has something of the character of the midwestern State university, especially in its three State-supported colleges—all three leaders in their fields. By the side of these, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School, and the professional colleges have successfully attained the high standards of training and scholarship set by the older eastern universities. Free elective study has been a distinctive characteristic of Cornell from its inception.
CAMPUS TOUR
(The main entrance is on Eddy St. at Williams St. Unless otherwise stated, buildings are open 9–5 weekdays during the academic year.)
From Stewart Avenue on the west the campus rises in a series of terraces to the crest of Kite Hill, 900 feet high, with many of the buildings constructed to take advantage of the sharp slope. The heart of the lower campus is the main quadrangle, a level stretch of greensward crisscrossed by paths, shaded by spreading elms, and bordered by the older university buildings, with the conspicuous clock tower at its southwest corner. The main buildings of the upper campus are grouped around the ‘Ag’ quadrangle, with the athletic plant directly south.
1. MYRON TAYLOR HALL, designed by F. Ellis Jackson of Providence, R.I., and completed in 1932, was the gift of Myron C. Taylor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s peace emissary to the Vatican and former chairman of the board of the United States Steel Corporation. It houses the Law School, which became a graduate school in 1925 and has published the Cornell Law Quarterly since 1915.
The building, of English Collegiate Gothic design, constructed of native bluestone with limestone trim, is L-shaped in plan, and has two main wings, a tower, and two connecting links, with walks and terraces completing the group. In the south wing is the library, a very large, arched room trimmed in light oak, with archaic sculptural ornament and Renaissance doorways with fine carvings. The mock courtrooms in the other large wing are equally impressive with fine plaster and wood detail.
2. SAGE COLLEGE (private), erected in 1873–4, is a women’s dormitory. The building, together with an endowment of $100,000, was the gift of Henry W. Sage. It is a three-story Victorian Gothic structure with a tall, slender, pyramidal tower and lantern. The architect was the Reverend Charles Babcock, professor of architecture at Cornell, 1871–1913, and pupil and son-in-law of Richard Upjohn, architect.
3. SAGE CHAPEL (open 9–5 weekdays; 11–12 Sun.), the gift of Henry W. Sage, erected in 1874, was also designed by Babcock in the Victorian Gothic style. Sunday services during the academic year are conducted by visiting clergymen of various denominations. In the crypt under the Memorial Antechapel at the northwest corner are the graves of Ezra Cornell and his wife, Andrew D. White, Alonzo B. Cornell, eldest son of Ezra Cornell and governor of New York, 1880–3, and others. In the Sage Memorial Apse, at the east end of the nave, are the graves of Henry W. Sage and his wife.
4. WILLARD STRAIGHT HALL (open 8 a.m. to midnight daily), the student union, is the social center of the campus. Named for Willard D. Straight, class of 1901, the building was given by his widow to fulfill his desire that his estate be used to further human contacts among the students of his Alma Mater. Opened in 1925, it was designed by Delano and Aldrich, New York City, in the English Collegiate Gothic style.
The mural decorations in the lobby, by Ezra Winter, represent phases of the ideal human character. The Memorial Room, opening off the west end of the lobby, designed in the manner of an English college hall, is used for meetings, dances, and Sunday afternoon musicales. The other rooms are lounges for men and women. The upper floor contains barber shop, game room, and sleeping rooms. The lower floors contain dining rooms, cafeteria, and, in the northwest wing, a little theater (adm. 50¢–$1), in which plays are presented on Fridays and Saturdays almost every week of the academic year by the Cornell Dramatic Club.
5. The MEN’S DORMITORIES (private) comprise a group of dormitory units built of native bluestone and designed in the English Collegiate Gothic style by Day and Klauder of Philadelphia. The WAR MEMORIAL along West Avenue consists of the Army Tower, the Navy Tower, and a connecting arcade (open at all times) with traceried arches in the manner of a Gothic cloister.
KEY FOR ITHACA MAP
CORNELL UNIVERSITY CAMPUS TOUR
1. Myron Taylor Hall 2. Sage College 3. Sage Chapel 4. Willard Straight Hall 5. Men’s Dormitories 6. Library Building 7. Morrill Hall 8. Statue of Ezra Cornell 9. McGraw Hall 10. White Hall 11. Sibley Hall 12. Goldwin Smith Hall 13. Statue of Andrew D. White 14. Bailey Hall 15. Martha Van Rensselaer Hall 16. Roberts Hall 17. James Law Hall 18. Balch Halls 19. Prudence Risley Hall 20. Suspension Bridge
POINTS OF INTEREST IN CITY
21. City Hall 22. Cornell (Ithaca Public) Library 23. 1thaca College 24. Tompkins County Courthouse 25. Stewart Park
6. The LIBRARY BUILDING (open, during academic year, 8–5:30 weekdays; summer, 9–5 weekdays), at the southwest corner of the main quadrangle, erected in 1891, was designed by William H. Miller of Ithaca in the Richardson Romanesque style, with massive stone arches and corbels.
The library, together with the various college and departmental libraries, has a wealth of special collections, including the Fiske Dante, Petrarch, Rhaeto-Romanic, and Icelandic collections; the Charles Anthon classical library; the Franz Bopp philological library; the Goldwin Smith historical library; the White architectural library and Spinoza collection; the Zarncke Germanic library; the Eugene Schuyler collection of Slavic folklore; the Wordsworth collection made by Mrs. Cynthia Morgan St. John; the Charles W. Wason Chinese collection; the James Verner Scaife Civil War collection; the Emil Knichling library of engineering; the Flower veterinary library.
The CLOCK TOWER (not open to public), south of the library and connected with it, is freestanding, square, campanile-like, constructed of the same stone and in the Romanesque style. It is 173 feet in height and contains a chime of 14 bells, the original nine of which were donated by Miss Jennie McGraw in 1868. When the university is in session the chimes are rung for 15 minutes before 8 a.m., for 10 minutes before 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., and on Sundays before the 11 o’clock service in Sage Chapel. The office of chimemaster has always been held by a student.
7. MORRILL HALL (open, during academic year, 8:30–4:30 weekdays; in summer, 8–4 weekdays), built in 1866–8 of bluestone in the late French Renaissance style, and named for the author of the Land Grant Act of 1862, is the oldest building on the campus. It houses the administrative offices and, on the third floor, the laboratory of experimental psychology.
8. The STATUE OF EZRA CORNELL, founder of the university, is a bronze of heroic size modeled by Hermon Atkins MacNeil and unveiled in 1919. As a young man Ezra Cornell (1807–74) managed mills and factories along Fall Creek. After 1844 he devoted his attention to the extension of telegraph lines and the organization of telegraph companies, among them the Western Union. He retired in 1858 with a large fortune, and in the next ten years achieved the great work of his life—the founding of the university. He served as chairman of the board of trustees until his death.
9. McGRAW HALL, completed in 1872, the gift of John McGraw of Ithaca, is designed in the late French Renaissance style, similar to that of Morrill and White Halls. Its tower forms the dominant motif of this original group of buildings.
10. WHITE HALL, similar in design to Morrill Hall, was completed in 1869. It is named for Andrew D. White. The College of Architecture, on the third floor, middle entrance, conducts an almost continuous exhibition of drawings, sketches, or paintings by members of its faculty and student body.
11. SIBLEY HALL, the main building of the College of Engineering, is a composite structure, the two end sections dating from the seventies and the central section with the dome erected in 1902. It is named for Hiram Sibley of Rochester, who donated a large sum toward its endowment and equipment.
The large room under the dome (open) houses the college library and a study hall. On the west wall, in a glass case, is the original Morse telegraph instrument, presented to the college by Hiram Sibley, who, together with Ezra Cornell, was associated with Samuel F.B. Morse in the practical development of the electric telegraph.
A MEMORIAL SEAT AND TABLET, in front of Sibley Hall, commemorates the founding of Sigma Xi, honorary scholastic scientific society, at Cornell University in 1886.
A large hydraulic laboratory at the outlet of Beebe Lake provides facilities for numerous important hydraulic investigations carried on in co-operation with Government agencies. A 200-foot canal is used for the construction of model dams by means of which the problems of flood control are studied.
12. GOLDWIN SMITH HALL, with its heavy Doric portico, was erected in 1904–6 to house the College of Arts and Sciences. It was named in honor of Goldwin Smith (1823–1910), who was brought from England by Andrew D. White to serve as professor of English history. In his will he made a large bequest to the university. A marble portrait bust of him, executed by Sir Moses Ezekiel, stands in the lobby of the building.
13. The STATUE OF ANDREW D. WHITE, facing that of Ezra Cornell across the quadrangle, is a seated figure in bronze, of heroic size, wearing the gown of a doctor of civil law of the University of Oxford. It is one of the last works of Karl Bitter. At the unveiling in 1915 Mr. White made a brief address.
Andrew D. White (1832–1918) was born in Homer, New York. He was professor of history in the University of Michigan from 1857 to 1862. From 1863 to 1867, as member of the New York State Senate, he was instrumental in securing the State’s share of the land grant of 1862 for Cornell University. He served as first president of the university (1867–85) and as U.S. Minister to Germany and to Russia and president of the American delegation to the first peace conference at The Hague. His best known published work is A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. He made many large gifts of books and money to the university.
14. BAILEY HALL (private), the auditorium of the College of Agriculture, used for major university functions, seats about 2,000. It is a semicircular structure adorned with Ionic colonnades. The building is named for Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858———), director and dean of the College of Agriculture, 1903–13, well known for his writings on botany, horticulture, and rural social and educational problems, and for his editorship of the standard cyclopedias of American horticulture and agriculture.
15. MARTHA VAN RENSSELAER HALL, erected in 1933 to house the College of Home Economics, is a large structure built of gray-buff brick, with limestone trim, white painted sash, and spotted slate roof. In the northeast corner is the nursery, in which students are trained in the care of infants. Two-months-old babies, in perfect health and from good families, are kept here for the full college term; and girl students are assigned as ‘mothers’ for four-day periods of actual care of the infants.
The building was named for Martha Van Rensselaer (1864–1932), pioneer in the education of farm women, professor of home economics, and first director of the State College of Home Economics. She was also active on national committees on homemaking, housing, and child health. In 1923 she was named by the National League of Women Voters as one of the 12 most distinguished women of the United States.
16. ROBERTS HALL, the main building on the College of Agriculture quadrangle, is named for Isaac Phillips Roberts, director of the college, 1874–1903. It contains the college offices, including the publications office, which issues the many pamphlets published by the college to make available the results of the researches of its departments in scientific methods of agriculture. The State College of Agriculture performs a variety of services, including extension work, reading courses, a winter short course in agriculture, and an annual Farm and Home Week, at which the governor of the State is regularly a guest and speaker.
On the fourth floor of the building is the department of meteorology. The weather station on the roof, reached from the fourth floor, is maintained in co-operation with the U.S. Weather Bureau as the central station of New York State.
17. The three-story JAMES LAW HALL, the main building of the State Veterinary College, is in the late French Renaissance style. The building was named for the first director of the college, who was the first person to give instruction in veterinary medicine in an American university.
18. The BALCH HALLS (private), dormitories for women, were built in 1929. They are of an eclectic English-Italian Renaissance style; the entrance to the arcade is designed with a Palladian motif. The front balustraded terrace is a popular lounging place.
19. PRUDENCE RISLEY HALL (private), a dormitory for women erected in 1913, was given by Mrs. Russell Sage and named in memory of Russell Sage’s mother. The pictures, statuary, and furniture in the main corridor and in the parlors on the ground floor were given by Andrew D. White.
20. The SUSPENSION BRIDGE, reached on the north by a path from Fall Creek Drive opposite Highland Ave., and on the south by a path off University Avenue just west of Sibley Hall, sways 100 feet above the rockbound waters of Fall Creek and affords a bird’s-eye view of the rugged gorge. To the west are the Stewart Avenue bridge and Ithaca Falls; to the east, Triphammer Falls and bridge and the hydraulic laboratory at the foot of Beebe Lake.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN CITY
21. The CITY HALL (open 9–5 Mon.–Fri., 9–12 Sat.), NE. corner of Seneca and Tioga Sts., erected in 1842, is a rectangular building of red brick and white wood trim, with elevated front portico and a stepped wood tower rising from the roof. On the upper floor are the city offices; the first floor is given over to the police department, city court, and fire station.
22. The CORNELL (Ithaca Public) LIBRARY (open 10–9 weekdays), 115 N. Tioga St., a red brick building of the Civil War period, was erected and endowed by Ezra Cornell in 1864. Besides the library, the building houses offices of the WPA and the city welfare department.
23. ITHACA COLLEGE, administrative offices at 120 E. Buffalo St., comprises a group of structures around De Witt Park and several additional buildings in the downtown section of the city. It includes departments of music, speech and dramatic art, and physical education. The student body, men and women, numbers 450, the faculty 44. Begun in 1892 as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music, the college was chartered by the Board of Regents in 1931.
24. The TOMPKINS COUNTY COURTHOUSE, corner of Court and N. Tioga Sts., is a modern classical building erected in 1931. In it are the headquarters and exhibit rooms (open 10–5 Thurs.) of the De Witt Historical Society of Tompkins County. The exhibits include Indian and Colonial relics and many items relating to local history.
25. STEWART PARK, at the head of Cayuga lake, the principal public park of the city, includes a bathing beach with bathhouses, picnic grounds, athletic fields, a small zoo, and the RENWICK BIRD SANCTUARY and FUERTES WILD FOWL SANCTUARY, which provide refuge for more than 300 species of birds. These sanctuaries were made possible by gifts from local citizens and were developed with the co-operation of the Department of Ornithology of Cornell University.
The memorial gateway at the waterfowl pond bears a bronze plaque in honor of Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874–1927), native of Ithaca, ornithologist, and internationally known painter of bird pictures, many of the originals of which hang in the State Museum at Albany. He also supervised the designing and construction of several famous bird groups in the Museum of Natural History, New York City.
POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Watkins Glen State Park, 29 m. (see Tour 27). Buttermilk Falls State Park, 2.3 m., Robert H. Treman (Enfield Glen) State Park, 4.7 m., Taughannock Falls State Park, 9.5 m. (see Tour 30).
