Some Highlights of the Heights
On June 12, 1915, the Village of Cayuga Heights was incorporated within the Town of Ithaca, abutting the City of Ithaca line at the northern edge of the Cornell campus. Thousands have called Cayuga Heights home, whether for their entire lives, or for a sabbatical year. Children have grown up here, moved away and put down roots around the world; others have returned to raise families. All of us create the story of the Heights, whether a memory is left behind or taken with them when they leave. Good, bad, and in between, we hope to preserve some of these memories.
In many ways a microcosm of Ithaca itself, this tiny locale has provided residence to schoolteachers, social workers, physicians, administrators, government workers, and volunteers, along with, in typical Ithaca fashion, at least a dozen Nobel Prize winners, nearly as many Pulitzer Prize recipients, half-a-dozen MacArthur Award winners, a Cayuga Nation Indian leader, a U.S. Olympic Hall of Famer, relatives of a king of Morocco, a Thai princess, and long ago, servants and other help who have made significant contributions to our culture and humanity or simply made the Village an interesting and unique place to live. The highlights below illustrate the impact of the wider course of events in U.S. history on daily life in the Village, as well as the impact these Ithaca residents have had in shaping the world around us, often far beyond our compact borders. For a history through our houses, please read down the left column and then down the right. We hope you'll enjoy this trip through the Village's past through a history of it these selected houses, and hopefully you will want to add the story of yours.
In many ways a microcosm of Ithaca itself, this tiny locale has provided residence to schoolteachers, social workers, physicians, administrators, government workers, and volunteers, along with, in typical Ithaca fashion, at least a dozen Nobel Prize winners, nearly as many Pulitzer Prize recipients, half-a-dozen MacArthur Award winners, a Cayuga Nation Indian leader, a U.S. Olympic Hall of Famer, relatives of a king of Morocco, a Thai princess, and long ago, servants and other help who have made significant contributions to our culture and humanity or simply made the Village an interesting and unique place to live. The highlights below illustrate the impact of the wider course of events in U.S. history on daily life in the Village, as well as the impact these Ithaca residents have had in shaping the world around us, often far beyond our compact borders. For a history through our houses, please read down the left column and then down the right. We hope you'll enjoy this trip through the Village's past through a history of it these selected houses, and hopefully you will want to add the story of yours.
Over a century of houses, over a century of stories
(Please read down the left column and then down the right.)
172 Pleasant Grove Road
(Also known as Kline Road before 1953) "Cradit-Moore House" Year Built: 1817, 1860-61 Style: Greek Revival The Cradit-Moore House represents a successful recent effort at preserving our local heritage. The earliest section of the home, its northern wing (1817), was constructed by Isaac Cradit. It possesses many Greek Revival characteristics such as pilasters, a cornice line with full entablature, a pediment-shaped door surround and elaborate window molding. Around 1860-61, the southern wing was added when it was sold to Peter Kline. (The Klines owned much farmland in the area.) The house was bought by Dr. and Mrs. Norman Moore in 1938 and underwent many changes. Dr. Moore was the first Director of Cornell University’s health care system. In 1948 the house was sold to Cornell with the Moores retaining lifetime residency. About fifteen years ago, Cornell’s expansion blueprint for the North Campus included plans to demolish the building, and Historic Ithaca stepped in to save the almost 200-year old structure. In 2000, the house was moved about three-tenths of a mile north of its original location at 128 Pleasant Grove Road to its current location. 706 Hanshaw Road
"Savage Farm House" Year Built: 1870 Style: Four Square The Savage Farm house, a handsome four rooms over four rooms design, originally stood on what is now Kendal at Ithaca land and was moved to its current location on Hanshaw Road near the Highgate Road area. Jared Newman developed the Highgate area on the site of the Troy Farm beginning just beyond the current location of this house, in 1922, hoping it would later become part of Cayuga Heights, which it did. Pleasant Grove Cemetery
Pleasant Grove Road (Formerly also known as Kline Road) Style: Gothic Revival Pleasant Grove Cemetery memorializes some of the area's early settlers, such as young Carrie Manning (see below, of 2214 N. Triphammer Road), and Midge Wilson and her parents (see below, of 106 Oak Hill Place) as well as others whose academic contributions live on--among them Peter J. W. Debye (of 634 Highland Road), Thomas Gold (of 414 Cayuga Heights Road), William Strunk Jr., and A.R. Ammons (of 606 Hanshaw Road). The Gothic Revival cemetery chapel still stands. 309 E. Upland Road
"Bush Farm House" Year Built: 1825 In 1910-11 Jared Newman sold the Bush Farm land and house to the Sheldon family who had moved here from a farm near Lyle, New York, to take advantage of the excellent education Cornell offered their children. They later bought "The Little House" (see below) for their son. 303 E. Upland Road
"The Little House" Year Built: 1900 Style: Colonial Revival Originally an outbuilding of the Wyckoff Estate in Cornell Heights, that was called a "gymnasium" because of a dirt track which ran around the outside. Intended for fitness and sport for the leisured class, it was hastily built structure. The small building was sold for financial reasons, and sold to the Sheldons (see above). Moving homes (called "removal") was common practice during the 19th century to "make way for progress." Cut in half with hand saws, this house was transported up Triphammer Road to number 901. Mrs. Sheldon was widowed after her huband, a doctor in Philadelphia, died treating patients with influenza after WWI. So when someone wanted to buy the Triphammer property, she happily hired a tractor to move the house to E. Upland Road, though it got stuck in the neighbor's mud on the way! Read the full story of this fascinating house in a booklet by Elizabeth Mount, here. 2214 North Triphammer Road
"Manning/LaBar Farm" Year Built: Circa 1810-1829 In the early 1800s, Richard Manning cleared the land for a farm that would become, first, Savage Farm and then what we know as Kendal at Ithaca on one side of North Triphammer Road, and much of the "northeast" neighborhoods on the other side. The Manning Farm fell within lot 89 in the Township of Ulysses, the predecessor of the Town of Ithaca. The settler's son, Thompson Manning, born in 1822, spent 80 years of a long life in another house on the farm while married to his first wife, Caroline Drake. In 1869, their daughter Carrie kept a diary in which she described daily life in great detail, including staying home from school to "drop corn", ironing calico, gathering nuts, making "Delicate Cake", playing dominoes, and chewing "pitch gum". She tells of her father going to the mill where his grains were ground into flour or meal for the livestock and of holding candles for light while he butchered a hog. Snow was cleared by oxen; sick folk were cured by boneset, catnip, pennyroyal and other herbs. She mentions families whose names you'll recognize--Kline, Hanshaw, Cornell--among them. Carrie died in 1875, at just nineteen, and was buried in Pleasant Grove Cemetery (see above). As for the farm, Thompson Manning sold it to Ezra Cornell's grandson, Franklin C. Cornell in 1903 where the latter grazed the horses that pulled the wagons for his East Hill Coal Company. When the automobile made the labor of horses redundant, Franklin sold the land to his sister, Eunice Cornell Taylor, and her husband Charles. In the 1960s LeGrand Chase subdivided the portion that he named Williamsburg Park on the east side of North Triphammer Road. Tom and Patty Davis, who moved into 2211 North Triphammer Road, a modern split-level home on what was still a country road with nary a shop beyond in Lansing, were instrumental in organizing the petition that resulted in the extension of a sidewalk from North Triphammer on to Winthrop Drive up to the Village line. This made it safe for the increasing number of school children to walk to their neighborhood Northeast school. Read a full history of the brick farm house here. 830 Hanshaw Road
"Bedbug House" Year Built: 1829 What happened after the sale of the old Manning Farm (see above) by Franklin C. Cornell to his sister Eunice and her husband, Charles Taylor in 1919 is the story of what we know today as the Warren Real Estate building at Community Corners. It was first the farmhouse of the Kline family, whose name Jared Newman gave to the development of the Klinewoods section of Cayuga Heights (see right hand column) in the early 1930s. Eunice and Charles acquired the house with the purchase of the Manning Farm from brother Franklin. They bought cows and ran a dairy business, which was not a great success. Widowed and without funds, Eunice was cared for by the farm manager and his wife. She died in 1942; the house was inhabited by a series of residents, thereby acquiring its infamous name, "Bedbug House." Some of us may remember the house as the Peggy Cornwall women's clothing shop before Warren Real Estate moved in and accomplished renovations to the federal style facade. 836 Hanshaw Road
(Formerly Dryden Road) "The Stone House, or Stonecroft" (Now Marcham Hall, or Village Hall, as well as the Police Department) Year Built: 1928 Built for Dorothy Cornell, a granddaughter of Ezra Cornell, her sister and brother-in-law, Eunice C. and Charles Taylor, lived next door at 830 Hanshaw Road (see above). Complete with a slate roof, a chandelier or two from the Hotel Martinique, a hotel the Taylors had run in New York City, a picket fence imported from France, fine ironwork hinges and handles on the doors and windows, a greenhouse, and a charming sun dial on the outside wall, changed hands many times after Dorothy lost her money in the Great Depression. In 1969 the Village purchased the house for $1 from the adjacent Village Green Shopping Center, naming it after Cornell Professor and former Village mayor, Frederick Marcham (see 112 Oak Hill Road), who served from 1956 to 1987. The Story of Marcham Hall, by Village Historian Bea Szekely, tells the history of the house and its occupants. 219 Kelvin Place
Year Built: 1906 A typical home, in the Old Style, in the area of the Cornell Heights Historic District that is part of Cayuga Heights. One hundred sixty six homes are part of a single historic district that straddles Cornell Heights (125 homes) and Cayuga Heights (41 homes), which together comprise what we now call the Cornell Heights Historic District. 421 Highland Road
"Clovermere" Year Built: 1903 Architect: Clinton L. Vivian Style: Rambling shingle Built for Cayuga Heights developer Jared Newman as a summer residence on the small lane between The Parkway and Highland Road, "Clovermere" was winterized and moved to its current location in 1921 when Newman began construction of a commanding new residence with Spanish and Mission style elements, including a red tile roof, near the entrance to Cayuga Heights at what is now 9 Parkway Place (originally 409 Highland Road). 2 Parkway Place
Year Built: 1913 Architect: Gustav Stickley Style: Craftsman The Gustav Stickley-designed home at 2 Parkway Place was built for the Peer family. Franklin Peer bred Guernsey cattle. His son, Sheman Peer, was an Ithaca lawyer and, later, Cornell provost for external affairs. Originally 401 Highland Road, 2 Parkway Place was the first Stickley home in Ithaca and clearly reflects the Craftsman style of architecture. This home is one of three grand residences at the intersection of The Parkway and Highland Road, marking the entrance to Cayuga Heights. The other two "Sentinel" homes on Parkway Place include the home built by Jared Newman at 9 Parkway Place and the residence at 104 The Parkway built by J.H. Tanner, the Village's first treasurer (see photo in former village historian Carol Sisler's book, Enterprising Families, page 109). 2 Parkway Place was later the home of the Rothschild family, who owned the popular Rothschild's Department Store downtown on the Ithaca Commons from the turn of the century until 1980.
318 Highland Road
"Northcote" (Now Acacia Fraternity) Year Built: 1907 Architect: Gibb and Waltz Style: Prairie A non-conformist himself, Henry Shaler Williams was likely influenced by the work non-conforming atchitect Frank Lloyd Wright when he had his long, horizontally oriented home built hugging the ground. Low ceilings inside provide a feeling of intimacy in an otherwise expansive design. 322 Highland Road
Year Built: 1915 Home of Edith Clifford Williams, non-conformist daughter of Henry Shaler Williams (see above). Edith, known by choice as "Clifford", used her inheritance from the sale of her parents home, "Northcote" (see above), to build this house. When her parents disapproved of the man she wished to marry, she declared she would never marry, and she did not. Instead, she maintained a fifty-year affair with the influential Chinese intellectual, activist, and diplomat, Hu Shi. Their romance and detailed letters are captured in the book, A Pragmatist and His Free Spirit: the half century romance of Hu Shi & Edith Clifford Williams. Clifford, herself an accomplished artist in Alfred Steiglitz's inner circle, was featured in Marcel Duchamp's modernist journal Rongwrong. Troop 4, Ithaca
Boy Scouts of America Boy Scout Troop 4 has played a significant role in the lives of many Cayuga Heights boys since its founding close to a hundred years ago, in 1916, by Charles Newman (see 110 The Parkway), son of developer Jared Newman. As narrated by John Marcham, (see 112 Oak Hill Road), an active member in the 1950s, the story of the troop started with Charles, who was inspired to found the troop when he pulled aside Lord Baden Powell, the founder of Boy Scouting, for a conversation during a visit the latter made to the Delta Upsilon fraternity house at Cornell in the company of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1917, Scoutmaster Newman was called to serve in World War I and was replaced by a Cornell Heights neighbor, the renowned artist and naturalist, Louis Agassiz Fuertes. With ready access to Cornell faculty and Fuertes as their guide, the Boy Scouts of Troop 4 began to focus on nature study as an important part of troop activity, along with such wartime efforts as selling savings stamps, Liberty Loan Drives, and raising money for the County War Chest. Today, the troop is one of the oldest in the country. It currently meets at Cayuga Heights Elementary School (see below). 106 Oak Hill Place
Year Built: 1920 Architect: Clinton Vivian Builder: William E. Lamkin Landscape Architect: Ralph W. Curtis Click on the documents below to read an account of Oak Hill Place and its environs in the 1920s, written by lifelong resident "Midge" Wilson. Midge's father who moved into the house from Iowa, was three-time president of the Council of Social Agencies between 1925 and 1935 and director of the Tompkins County Community Fund during World War II. Note the mention of the original slate sidewalk and plaque (which still welcomes visitors today), the Oak Hill Trail (created through the woods behind the homes as a way to stay close to nature), and stone Indian arrowheads (possibly Iroquois, as the name of the two nearby streets.)
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110 East Upland Road
"Hitchcock Hall" (Now Cayuga Heights Elementary School) In 1920, Jared Newman donated this land on which Union Free School, District no. 6, was built in 1924 at the intersection of Upland, Highland and Hanshaw Roads, then known as Cayuga Circle where the old trolley line made a loop. As Newman intended, the central location added to the attraction of Cayuga Heights for families with children. Named for its beloved first principal, Miss Martha Hitchcock, Hitchcock Hall was the forerunner of the Cayuga Heights Elementary School. It was a beautiful, rambling Tudor-style building in a park-like setting. Sadly, the era of urban renewal brought its demolition and replacement by the Ithaca City School District in 1968 with the current, much more generic building, which has been added on to since. In 1980, enrollment decline caused the Ithaca City School District to close the school. Disappointed villagers responded with the formation of a Cayuga Heights Community Association under the leadership of Betty Matyas, who lived next door to the school. Tenants were found, including a Montessori school, to keep the building viable, and when enrollments climbed back up, the school was reopened in 1988 for both village children and those bussed from West Hill. In 1995, the large number of older adults who sold their homes and moved to Kendal at Ithaca flooded the real estate market with houses that young families proved eager to purchase, and so, once again the school was bursting at the seams. |
106 Cayuga Heights Road
"Greystone" Year Built: 1913 Architect: John Van Pelt, New York City "Greystone" is known for its second owners, Irene Castle, dancer and silent film star, and Robert E. Treman, scion of the prominent family in Ithaca's early business community. In 1918, the home was featured in the Wharton Studios film, A Romance in the Air. Irene was often photographed at Greystone in such magazines as Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Town and Country. Having been the scene of a true "Roaring Twenties" lifestyle, the lavish mansion was sold in 1925 to Cornell's Sigma Chi fraternity. Click here to read a piece by John Foote about the studio that was to be built "on Cayuga Heights," and here for more on the history of the Wharton Studio and Irene Castle. 107 Overlook Road
"Hidden Home" Year Built: 1918-19 Architect: Helen Binkerd Young Style: Tudor Revival Helen Binkerd Young, the only woman graduate in the 1900 Cornell architecture program, began teaching home design in the Home Economics Department in 1910. Unwelcome by society as an architecture professor, she did succeed in designing several homes in Cayuga Heights, among them, her own house, "Hiddenhome," that she designed in collaboration with her husband. Societal and institutional obstacles to women in the practice of architecture impeded her career. In 1910, she listed herself in the U.S. Census as having "no occupation." In 1930, the 19th Amendment having been passed ten years earlier, she listed "architect." 511 Cayuga Heights Road
"Robin Hill" (Current home of Cornell president) Year Built: 1923 Architect: J. Lakin Baldridge Landscape architect: Edward Lawson Style: English Tudor Named for the house that Soames Forsyte built for beautiful Irene in The Forsyte Saga, it was originally architect Baldridge's own home. His second wife was a member of the Treman family, who retained ownership after him until 1956. In 1963, the university purchased the house, and Cornell President James Perkins and family moved in. The change of the president's residence from 205 Oak Hill Road may have been occasioned by the university administration's wish to move further from campus, out of easy reach by students, given an incident at the Oak Hill address in 1958 (see story below.) The half-timbered house is built of locally quarried Llenroc (Cornell spelled backwards) stone, and stucco, with leaded glass windows, large and small slate roof tiles and copper water pipes indicating the high quality standards used. A monument to a pre-Depression era, the house boasts 9000 square feet, has seventeen rooms, nine fire places, eight bathrooms, and closets as large as entire rooms. The booklet by Elizabeth Rawlings gives great details about the house, The History of the Cornell University President's House, provides terrific details. Similar to the grand mansions downtown, these early palatial homes usually had servants quarters, and of course this help made it much easier for these owners to achieve success and live a privileged life. A quick glance at the 1917 Ithaca Directory lists, for example, Elizabeth Hanis, Highland Road, cook; Anna Nelson, Overlook Road, maid; Grant Hurlbutt, The Parkway, chauffeur; and Marcella Jacobsen, The Parkway, domestic. (Marcella married Frederick Hasenjager in 1917, a cylinder pressman and printer from her native Norway, ten years her junior, and is thereafter no longer listed as a domestic.) Sunset Park
Sunset Park Drive Constructed on the slope of a sandbank by developer Jared Newman on what he called the "Western Slope." Providing panoramic views of Cayuga Lake and the City of Ithaca in the valley below, Newman and his wife Jane donated the parkland to the Village in 1928 with the stipulation that the view would never be obstructed.
Sunset Park is a prime spot for Ithacans to view the July 4th fireworks over Cayuga Lake. 110 The Parkway
Year Built: 1928 Architect: LeRoy Burnham Charles Newman, son of Cayuga Heights developer Jared, and his wife Marion wanted a smaller house than those he had grown up in, recognizing that they could not afford the wealthy lifestyle of his parents. Times were changing; the Depression was coming. Marion would do much of the housework, so theirs was reputedly the first village house built without a maid's room. Jared Newman was much impressed with his son and daughter-in-law's home, designed by Ithaca architect LeRoy Burnham, so much so that he turned his attention to the building of smaller homes a bit farther north in the Village from the original section where his own grand house stood at the intersection of Highland Road and The Parkway. Smaller and cheaper housing, he hoped, would not mean "Cheap John"; his solution was the development he called Klinewoods, beginning in 1932 (see below). 104 Klinewoods Road
Year Built: 1932 Architect: Ray H. Bennett Company Style: Colonial vernacular Relatively inexpensive "Kit houses", assembled from standardized parts and designs became an affordable alternative to architect-designed homes as the demand for housing on the part of middle class buyers increased in the 1930s and thereafter. All the oak woodwork and floors, roofing and brass fittings of 104 Klinewoods and its twin at 203 East Upland Road were shipped by the Bennett Company whose work is archived at the North Tonawanda Historical Society Museum. Other kit houses in the Arts and Crafts, Bungalow and Colonial Revival styles are scattered in the Village awaiting identification and their stories. Cornell physics professor Guy Grantham and his wife were the first owners of this house; their granddaughter told the present owner, your village historian, that eminent Cornell physicists gathered for poker in the dining room (see physicists below). 112 Oak Hill Road
Year Built: 1931 Architect: Lakin Baldridge Style: Colonial Revival Home of professor and Cayuga Heights mayor, Frederick Marcham. Though built during the Great Depression, the house is so solid, it still retains its structural integrity, and was built with extra thick walls. While millions lost their jobs and their money in the Crash, Cornell faculty salaries were cut only 6-10%, leaving them with the means to hire the available labor to continue to build comfortable homes. Initially, garages in the Heights were required to face away from the street, however, people often did not even have a car. Since that time, most garages have been changed to face the street, and many have been expanded to fit two cars and now, recycling bins. Click here to read about the old Cayuga Heights streetcars. Of living in this area in the 1930s, Marcham writes in his account, "Memories of Cayuga Heights, N.Y.," of a "typical Cayuga Heights Street": "My wife and I had chosen a place in Oak Hill Road that would allow our children a half mile walk to school and give me a one mile walk to the Cornell campus. For the walk I had friends; two of my neighbors joined me in walking, and one of them, like myself, owned no car....Their wives walked down Oak Hill Road westward to Highland Road and then south to the bus stop on Thurston Avenue. For a time, in the 1930s, milkmen and men who delivered ice, and the leading grocers in Ithaca, allowed us to order goods and brought them to us and to other persons around the City of Ithaca. If you were sick you would not go to the doctor; he or she came to you, the doctor with the little black bag. And once or twice a year the coalman came and poured tons of coal down a chute into your cellar." World War II Physicists
During the 1940s and 50s, Cornell was a huge employer of the best-and-the-brightest physicists. Many followed or were brought to Cornell by Hans Bethe from the Manhattan Project after World War II. At least a dozen of these scientists made Cayuga Heights their home, raised kids here, played poker here (see above), and socialized here, even with some whose perilous links they were unaware. (Read the gripping story of Alfred Sarant, who was charged with espionage along with the Rosenbergs, while working under such prominent scientists as Hans Bethe (209 White Park Road), Richard Feynman (505 The Parkway), and one-time neighbor Phillip Morrison (514 Wyckoff Road). A good number of Cornell's top physicists later moved to Kendal at Ithaca, the new community in Cayuga Heights for older adults, thereby earning Kendal the reputation of having the "best physics department in the country" at the time. Corners Community Center (Community Corners)
(Formerly known as Hanshaw's Corners) 903 Hanshaw Road Year Built: 1948 Architect: Sherwood Holt Built in the late-1940s, the original Corners Community Center, a small but distinctive, colonnaded white building with a red gable roof reminiscent of a Colonial era tavern, is a Village landmark. Designed to serve the daily retail needs of Cayuga Heights residents, it continues to be the only shopping center at the hub of any neighborhood in Ithaca. Incorporated in 1946 by Walter C. Heasley, Jr., Gerald A. Hill, Henry J. Shirey, and Charles E. Treman, Jr., it was an outgrowth of Newman and Blood's original planning for small shops that would be within walking distance of villager's homes. As such, its future is important and receives attention in the Village comprehensive plan. In the 1950s, John Kangas owned the Corners Barber Shop (which still welcomes customers today), and Sophia Brand owned the Corners Beauty Shop. Today the Corners is still host to the Corner Barber Shop, as well as businesses representative of today's tastes, such as Island Health and Fitness gym. It is also said that Vladimir Nabokov spent time at Corners Community Center and even included it in the setting of his book, Pale Fire. (Nabokov probably holds the record for having taken up residence in the most houses in the Village--six--623 Highland Road, 106 Hampton Road, 808 Hanshaw Road, 425 Hanshaw Road, 880 Highland Road, and 404 Highland Road.) Nabokov was brought to Cornell by Morris Bishop, (wife, artist Alison Mason Kingsbury) (of 903 Wyckoff Road). Nabokov, in a letter, encouraged Bishop to "give Lolita a try," claiming it to be his "best work so far." Click on images below to read the 1947 plan for the Corners Community Center. 194 Pleasant Grove Road
The Ron Anderson Firehouse Cayuga Heights Fire Department Year Built: 2000 Architect: Mitchell/Ross The home of the all-volunteer fire department, the station was named to honor the late mayor Ron Anderson because of his leadership during its design and construction. The Department's founding membership in 1955 was drawn from local workers and from Cornell faculty. Today, an innovative "bunker" program allows some members, usually Cornell or Ithaca College students, to live in second floor dormitory rooms rent-free in exchange for firefighting and emergency medical treatment services. This unique arrangement is one way the Department is able to maintain the fastest response time among area volunteer departments, two to three minutes. A memorial to the 9/11 firefighters, a garden in front of the station designed and donated by the Cayuga Heights Garden Club, is a peaceful reminder of the brave men and women who serve our country and our Village. 205 Oak Hill Road
Year Built: 1929 Architect: J. Lakin Baldridge Style: Tudor The early history of student activism at Cornell, in the late 1950s, is associated with the history of this handsome 1929 brick, stone, and stucco house where Cornell President Deane Malott and his wife once lived. In 1958, Kirkpatrick Sale, who grew up at 309 The Parkway and went on to become a prolific author on environmentalism, politics, and other subjects, was a leader of a Cornell student protest outside the Malott's home. At issue was a university policy forbidding unchaperoned parties in off-campus housing, which the protestors thought was the "last straw" in attempted control over student life. Sale and his Cornell roommate, Richard Fariña, who fictionalized the era in his 1966 novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, were part of the protest. Fariña's friend, Thomas Pynchon, described the scene at the house in the forward to a later edition of the book. Such events as these set the stage, of course, for the much more serious student radicalism to come and were likely an impetus to move the next Cornell president further north in the Village, farther from the campus boundary. At the time of the protest 205 Oak Hill Road was owned by Cornell and rented to the Malotts. Cornell first rented and then purchased it from Leverett Saltonstall, Jr., son of the Massachusetts senator, as temporary housing for the incoming Cornell president. Architect Lakin Baldridge added a wing two years later to house a bedroom and a ‘bathing tank’ for Gilbert, who had polio. An extensive history of the house, its evolution, and how it came to be the Malott residence for so many years, is here. Kirkpatrick Sale went on to write the most comprehensive book on the controversial Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Further to the story of 1960s unrest, Robin Palmer, who lived at 206 Oak Hill Road, facing the President's house, was an active member of the radical SDS Weathermen. Palmer's parents are remembered for generously gifting to the Village what is now known as Palmer Woods, the beautiful natural preserve near his house, along Triphammer Road, where John Marcham (112 Oak Hill Road) remembers playing "Capture the Flag" in what was called "Punky's Woods" when he was a young boy.
The Sales' owned the Community Book Shop at Community Corners (see advertisement on History page). Looking back fondly on his youth spent in the Village, he published an article in 2009 in The Front Porch Republic called Growing Up Village where he notes how the Village influenced his views on the subject of "human scale". 512 Highland Road
Year Built: 1900 The story of student unrest at Cornell picks up from the late 1950s protest at President Malott's house (see above, 205 Oak Hill Road) and moves on to the handsome house with the beautiful west-facing porch that runs the length of 512 Highland Road. During the trying days of prolonged and sometimes violent demonstrations at Cornell in 1969, Cornell faculty gathered on this porch, hosted by English professor M.H. Abrams, founder of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, to discuss the turbulence and make plans. Click here for a fascinating blog post about this period at Cornell and these particular players. 404 Triphammer Road
Date Built: 1966 Architect: Alexander Kira Style: Usonian This unusual home's architecture was influenced by a style employed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1936. A variant of a Usonian home, such homes are distinguished by their small size; single-story dwellings on inexpensive sites. A flat roof and natural lighting with clerestory windows provide a strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces. Designed and owned by Cornell architecture professor, Alexander Kira, Kira was attracted to the Miesian discipline of design. This was evident in the two homes he designed for himself in Cayuga Heights (the other has since been replaced.) Those who had occasion to visit recalled that he and his wife, Marian, were always proud to show off the many special features of these houses. Storage compartments, in every area of the houses were designed to accommodate specific items such as wine glasses, placemats, or socks. The interiors were always comfortable, clean, properly arranged and camera ready. About half-a-dozen Cornell architecture professors built homes for themselves in the village. Africana Studies and Research Center (ASRC)
310 Triphammer Road Cornell University The Africana Studies and Research Center was established in 1969, in the aftermath of the student unrest at Cornell and the tail end of the Civil Rights Era. Suspected arson at the Center's inital building on Wait Avenue, following the '69 Willard Straight Hall takeover convinced the University to provide a new one. Controversy over location ensued; some people, whether associated with the Center or not, considered its proposed placement on the north of campus--a twenty minute walk from central campus--a form of segregation. But 310 Triphammer was agreed upon with ample space for an extensive library and classrooms. 131 Cambridge Place
Year Built: 1984 Modern homes built after World War II are common in the Williamsburg Park area on the east side of Triphammer Road, which became part of the Village during Mayor Marcham's administration, in 1954. This house in its bucolic setting is located near Kendal at Ithaca. Children in the neighborhood are able to walk to the Northeast Elementary School, at 425 Winthrop Drive, just outside Cayuga Heights in the Town of Ithaca. Your house
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