Ithaca Meanderings

I’m blogging this from the Ithaca-Tompkins County public library, a excellent library one block from the downtown Ithaca commons. Today is the day I’m devoting to exploring Ithaca; happily, the weather is nice, it being overcast and 40-ish but no rain yet. The past two days were very foggy, and we could scarcely see the Sapsucker Woods pond from our meeting table in the library of the new Cornell Ornithology lab building.

I am staying in the Ramada Inn, three or four miles from downtown, and right next to the Pyramid uber-mall. Talking to Diane Hillmann, a long-time Cornell University librarian who was at our meeting, the big-box malls are definitely changing the character of Ithaca, and the current mayor is pro-growth. Let’s hope the downtown area stays healthy.

There are at least three used bookstores downtown, two on the commons area. I picked up a copy of Jasper Fforde’s new Thursday Next book at The Bookery, a bookstore whose used sections features artists’ books. And there is a printmaking center, The Ink Shop across Cayuga Street from the commons. On the commons are mostly small businesses, including the food court where I picked up an mixed vegetable curry plate with a mango lassi from a fast-food Indian place for lunch.

It was too wet and the windows were too misty to see much from the bus going downtown yesterday, but on today’s trip there were good views. My plan was to get off somewhere in the middle of Cornell and explore there. The bus passed through North Campus, an area mostly occupied by residential dorms, went south, and I did a bit of a double take when we passed over quite an impressive creek. Off the bus I got, and went back to have a look at the gorge of Fall Creek. A campus with its own waterfalls! It’s very neat. It’s very hilly topography, the water draining into nearby Cayuga Lake. Downtown is more-or—less at the elevation of the lake, and the campus is on the rise northeast of downtown.

I am about to have a look at the local history collections here in the library, my ancestors having lived one county to the north 200 years ago or so. And after that, off to the local food coop.