Talk:Ithaca, New York

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    8/9/2005 - I think Paul Glover is significant enough to add to the "Notable Residents" list. Sure, he's no Richard Feynmann, but he is well known within our community. In fact, in some ways I feel it's more important that he be added than Feynmann. Although Feynmann was a very well-known resident he didn't stay for very long, while Paul Glover has been active in Ithaca for a very long time and has probably made more of an impact on its residents. The Ithaca Hours program is even mentioned in the main text, albeit briefly, and I think that alone may warrant his inclusion in the end. Comments? -RockyRaccoon

      • I agree that Paul Glover should be included.. and so we should just do it. Can't we just add content to Wiki pages?
    • As you note, Glover is significant locally, but if we were to list everyone of comparable local significance in Ithaca, we would have a list of dozens or hundreds of Ithacans. I don't think that is what the section is about. All of the other people on the list mentioned are of national and/or international prominence and importance. I have nothing personally against Glover, but I don't think he belongs on the list (and in addition I feel the case for mentioning Ithaca Hours and the Ithaca Health Fund in a general audience encyclopedia article on Ithaca is marginal at best.)
    • Two other comments: I believe the Utne Reader and particularly the "Best Emerging City" award are worth mention in the article. For balance it might be worth mentioning that it has been criticized in some conservative publications and circles. I've noticed the "Problems Facing the City" section is almost entirely about the current transportation situation. As such, perhaps the section should be renamed. Or, make the transportation issue a subsection in the problem section (perhaps shortening it somewhat), and add some content about other issues. -- Ithacagorges 08:23, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

    See merge of "City of Evil" page, below. --Dayglored 08:35, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    Nohat adds back the Utne Reader line and says the following: "restore verifiable facts removed by Johnnyb82. if you want to remove these, you'll have to demonstrate that they aren't true)"

    -Perhaps I am not well-versed in the bylaws of Wikipedia, so forgive my ignorance, but this does not appear to be a very realistic threshold for removing information from the article. By this token, I could go into detail about how many Burger Kings there were or street names and other facts that have little value. Those are certainly verifiable facts, but that does not mean they belong in such an article. I will go back to my original point: that referencing an award by a political magazine that tilts one way opens the door to negative awards that point the other way or something similar.

    -I also question the wholesale reverts being previously being made by someone who disagreed with the deletion of the Ithaca Health Fund information and Utne Reader Award. I can respect a disagreement on content, but I feel that also removing all other changes that were not in dispute and removing the changes made by someone else on a wholly different subject to be misguided. Also, calling any change that he disagrees with to be vandalism is an unwarranted escalation of an edit dispute, IMHO.

    -The Utne Reader award entry opens up the door to more negative attention that Ithaca has received and risks opening the door to conflicting with the NPOV mission of Wikipedia.

    MERGE yes

    emoved "Residents of other nearby municipalities think that's pretty typical. " after the Utne reader comment, and added NPOV discussion of conflict with surrounding communities.

    Moved Utne Reader et al to separate section to introduce and contrast with the newly-merged "City of Evil" section. Now there's context for why Ithacans seem so pleased with themselves too. --Dayglored 08:35, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    much improved. Of course, it doesn't answer the basic question of non-Ithacans about why they are so pleased about themselves, but it is much more explanatory. They do have good beer and bookstores. One also needs "Ithaca Bucks" and cars held together with bumper stickers to have a complete entry, but I'm in no position to be neutral about 70s refugees. --MichaelTinkler, ph.d. holding resident of a municipality not very far from Ithaca.

    glad you like it. And it's Ithaca Hours not Ithaca Bucks. Either way though, I'm putting that in the article. And good grocery stores, as far as I'm concerned... I moved away 3 years ago, and have not yet found a grocery store as good as either Tops or Wegmans. But that doesn't really seem like a good thing to put in the wikipedia. --Fuzzrock, who grew up in Tinytown, but has fond memories.

    ah, but Wegman's is a Rochester concern, and if you like the Ithaca wegman's (which I understand), you should see the one in Pittsford. Grocery heaven. Tops is based in Buffalo, I think. --MichaelTinkler

    Contents

    [edit] Municipal government

    I put the stuff about Town of Ithaca/City of Ithaca lower down, in a Local Government section, so the article once again starts out being about the city. I think that an outsider, reading the Wikipedia for information, would be most likely to want to learn about the city, not the town. I hope that's ok.

    As a next step it would be good to lay out the forms of government (mayor, etc.) found at each level... Opus33 19:26, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

    I noticed that the 2000 census figures have been corrected. See Ithacamaps. Therefore I have changed the posted population figure. User:Magicmike 14 May 2004.

    [edit] HUGE PROBLEM

    This article should not exist. See Ithaca (city), New York and Ithaca (town), New York. This page needs to be divided among those two (by somebody more knowledgeable on the topic than I) and made a disambiguation page. Nelson Ricardo 00:26, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

    I disagree. The difference between the Town of Ithaca and the City of Ithaca aren't really relevant except when talking in specific about the particular government entities. "Ithaca, New York" refers in general to the town and the city, and this article reflects that general reference. There are links to [Ithaca (city), New York]] and Ithaca (town), New York which contain the detailed census data, if it is so desired. Nohat 00:37, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    I find the article very unclear about the difference between the town and city. They are completely separate governmentally. However, statements such as Within the Town is the City of Ithaca, give the impression that the city is a subdivsion of the town, which is impossible in New York State. Nelson Ricardo 00:53, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
    Well, the City of Ithaca is entirely within the Town of Ithaca. The Town is a subdivision of Tompkins County, and the entirety of the City is contained within the Town of Ithaca. Nohat 03:50, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    Yes, but that geographic coincidence does not mean that the town and the city have anything to do with each other. They are completely separate, just like Vatican City and San Marino are separate from Italy, although they are surrounded. I'm not sure this is clear. I reecntly had to clean up some badly phrased pages about Sherrill, New York. I've also emphasized such distinctions at Political subdivisions of New York State#City. Nelson Ricardo 03:59, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

    I'm happy with NR's second idea of making it clear that the City is not inside the Town. But on the general point of what this article is about I agree completely with Nohat. The City and Town are all one community: the residents read the same paper, attend the same public schools, have the same environmental concerns, etc., etc. Moreover, Ithaca is famous all over the world, particularly among educated people, but it's neither the City nor the Town per se that is famous; rather, it's just Ithaca. The world at large doesn't really care that much about the distinction between the different local government entities. .

    My copy of the Britannica agrees with Nohat; in fact it doesn't even mention the city/town distinction. Opus33 04:02, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

    I think my edits should make things clear without upsetting the apple cart. We do need to keep in mind that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a travelogue. If people come here with certain misconceptions, they should leave better educated. Local government boundaries are an important concept, and we shouldn't let a British (albeit now U.S.-owned) publication dictate that. Nelson Ricardo 11:10, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

    The whole city/town discussion seems a bit moot to me, only because mailing addresses are determined by school district lines, not municipality lines. I lived in the town of Dryden, but in a section that fell under Ithaca City School District territory meaning that I went to Ithaca High School and my brother went to Caroline Elementary and DeWitt Middle School. Even though our house was three miles from the Town of Ithaca, our mailing address was still Ithaca, NY 14850. The same was true of friends of mine who lived even farther away from the Town of Ithaca.

    All of this illustrates the point that to an Ithaca native, distinguishing between whether you live in the City or the Town is rather absurd, or at best, minutiae, considering that one can live far away from either municipality and still say that one lives in Ithaca! -TEB, Ithaca resident (1982-2000)


    Keep the distinction. I've lived "in Ithaca" since 1978: strictly speaking outside the city AND the town limits (I'm covered by Dryden too), but I pay taxes to the "Ithaca City School District", which IMO makes me a resident of "City of Ithaca" -- I can't pay taxes to the "Hamlet of Brooktondale" even though that would be more appropriate and feel better too. As far as I'm concerned, the bumper stickers that say "Ithaca: 10 square miles surrounded by reality" are dead on -- Ithaca's reach extends far beyond the city limits. Nevertheless, there is a valid reason for the distinction between "City of Ithaca" and "Town of Ithaca", and an encyclopedia shouldn't blur distinctions, it should either clarify them, or not mention them at all. Since it's impossible to not mention this one, I say leave the distinction. --Dayglored 08:02, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    I suggest modifying the description somewhat to focus on the Ithaca Metropolitan Area, which was recognized after the 2000 Census. The Ithaca MSA encompasses all of Tompkins County. That would remove the town/city problem, and lead to a more natural description of the area. Quinten 05:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Wide vs. narrow; other tweaks

    1) I aver that Ithaca really is in a narrow valley, greatly narrower than the Hudson Valley, the Mohawk Valley, the Shenandoah Valley, the Mississippi Valley--almost any valley you might care to name. You can walk across it in fifteen minutes...

    2) I took out Les Ducs because it seemed a bit parochial--"Hey, we're proud of our local gourmet restaurant."--and perhaps a bit like an ad. Moosewood belongs in the article because it has been nationally influential.

    3) Does anyone know what the situation currently is with toxics in Fall Creek from the Ithaca Gun Company? That is, was the Superfund cleanup considered successful? Right now the article isn't very clear on this point.

    Thanks, Opus33 17:45, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

    Ithaca was a major film production centre during the silent era until the industry moved west. The band Orleans, known for the song "Still the One" was from Ithaca. Nabokov wrote Lolita while living in Ithaca.

    [edit] Student pop. figures

    The previous article mentioned something like "half of the population of 30,000 are students," which I believe may be inaccurate. First of all, both Cornell and Ithaca College lie outside of city boundaries (both are in the Town of Ithaca). Around 30,000 live within the city limits, and while some of them may be college students, it certainly doesn't amount to 15,000! Secondly, those students living off-campus may not count as permanent residents anyway. When I was in college in Evanston, IL, I know that my permanent mailing address remained in Ithaca, NY. I don't know if this is true for all college students, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were. At any rate, I think my change, which mentions the number of students enrolled at each institution, conveys the fact that there are lots of students without relying upon figures that are misleading.

    -TEB

    Legal residency is largely a matter of whether you have some place else to go after you finish what you are doing in your current location, but there is no hard and fast rule (see the New York State income tax instructions for determining residency status). Some students can and do choose to declare residency in New York state. But many people don't care about legal residency when discussing the percentage of people in a college town who are students. Many care more about the percentage of people in their neighborhood who live a college student type of lifestyle, regardless of where those people have their mail delivered or where they file their state income tax returns. (EB 12/2/05)


    All of the Cornell student dorms are inside the city limits.

    -TMV9

    Except for the townhouses, iirc. But generally, that's true -- and many Cornell students also live in Collegetown, a district which is fully within the City of Ithaca.Eleusinian 20:43, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
    The Hasbrouck graduate housing owned by Cornell is in the Town of Ithaca. See Hasbrouck Circle just north of Beebe Lake on the following map supplied by Tompkins County, showing the political subdivisions in the urban area: http://www.tompkins-co.org/gis/maps/pdfs/UaMunisRoads-D.pdf
    A nontrivial number of grad/professional students live north of campus in Cayuga Heights/Lansing/Town of Ithaca and some in Dryden also. (EB 12/2/05)

    [edit] Problems faced by the city

    That section reads like it was written by the leader of the local Republicans in addition to a slew of WP:NOR vios. The things talked about in that section might be occuring, but without Verification, they're not encyclopedic in my opinion. Karmafist 01:54, 6 November 2005 (UTC)


    Agreed about need for verification. As a long-time (27 years) Ithaca resident, I'll attest to the general accuracy of the statements, including the more politically-charged ones. But sources are needed to back up the assertions. It might also be good in the interest of balance to point out that by definition, the majority of Ithacans voted for the uber-liberal local government, meaning they either approve of the actions or don't give a damn. Not sure exactly how to phrase that in the article, tho'... --Dayglored 08:02, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] Merged "Ithaca, City of Evil"

    The content from the "Ithaca, City of Evil" page was merged into this main Ithaca page per the deletion discussion page: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ithaca,_City_of_Evil

    I deleted some redundant content and slightly re-organized the affected sections to provide a smooth transition from "History" into "Most Enlightened..." into "City of Evil". The original separate page is now a redirect.

    Also moved prior mentions of the Utne Reader award and so forth into a section ahead of the merge, since they provide a good introduction. Cheers to all who are arguing this one out; IMO Ithaca is quite robust enough to withstand criticism, whether it come from the right or the left. If political attacks were dangerous to a city, Ithaca would have been wiped out long ago. --Dayglored 08:35, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

    I think the inclusion of material from freerepublic.com is of dubious value, and much of it mere invective that is verifiably false. For example, students from ACS do not graduate with degrees in "basket weaving". Surely those who want to present a balanced viewpoint can offer better than that. Also, I have yet to find someone who has seen a "City of Evil" bumper sticker, and I suspect that these are not as prevalent as claimed. All I believe we've seen is an entry from Cafe Press.

    24.59.101.98 18:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

    Clearly the City of Evil stuff is an attempt to sell Cafe Press merchandise and promote Free Republic. It's also a clearly partisan, non-neutral attempt to attack the city.

    66.93.62.*, sometime on 4 December 2005

    Above entry was accidentally attributed to wrong source, and subsequently separated. The page linked at freerepublic.com was promoting and selling anti-Ithaca theme merchandise through Cafe Press, and was partly for that purpose. The deleted text linking to that page appeared to create demand for the merchandise. I have not found anyone to date who has seen a single "City Of Evil" bumper sticker in Ithaca.

    Qphilo 01:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

    The content about "the city of evil" strikes me as very biased. Am I the only person who can feel the sarcasm in the phrase "in yet another aspect of 'the most enlightened city in america'" ???

    Yourfriendsteve

    Couple of comments here from the original author of the "City of Evil" section, to answer the above points.

    First, "yourfriendsteve", don't be so defensive: it's not sarcasm, it's humor. One of the aspects of being enlightened is the ability to embrace criticism, often with a laugh. The vast majority of Ithaca's liberal population acknowledges that the city is almost a parody of itself, hence the bumper sticker "Ithaca: 10 square miles surrounded by reality". Don't tell me you've never seen -that- one.

    Second, "Qphilo" and "66.93.62.*", I -have- seen "Evil" stickers around town, at least one of which was mated to an "Ithaca is Gorges" sticker (the one that the "Evil" one parodies) and a rainbow/diversity sticker, at Greenstar Coop. And I direct you to a recent article in the Ithaca Journal, Jan 26, 2006, about the incoming President of Cornell University, which refers to the "City of Evil" sticker (no, I'm not the author of that article).

    Third, "24.59.101.98", the City of Evil part of the Ithaca article is emphatically NOT a slam on the city, it's a testament to our ability to laugh and absorb jabs from all sides of the political spectrum. I happen to love Ithaca, having lived here by choice for 27 years. OTOH, the FR City of Evil page, as you point out, is a conservative attack on Ithaca, and isn't balanced, but remember it's on FR, a right-wing forum, not Wikipedia. I'm not associated with the FR page and don't intend to endorse it here. The reference to the CafePress site was there to provide a source for the modern name usage, not to sell stickers; but I accept the view that it's inappropriate to even -appear- to sell stuff on Wikipedia and have not challenged the removal of the link for that reason. Do I presume correctly that a photo montage of "Evil" stickers on cars around Ithaca would be considered similarly inappropriate advertising?

    Finally, let me respectfully suggest that you folks: a) sign up as Wikipedia users, or if you are, create a User profile page, so that you gain a little more cred as commentators and we can see who you are, b) lighten up, in the spirit of the city -- if you know Ithaca, you know it's a wonderfully loopy town that can laugh at itself. The stuffy folks who can't (some Cornell profs and a few local pols come to mind) are the exception, not the rule, around here.

    --Dayglored 10:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


    The reference to Free Republic was removed for a second time. Dayglored's attempted defense of its inclusion rests entirely on the argument that it is an outside source. That is not a defense, and there is an obvious reducto ad absurdum argument to run against it. [viz., Dayglored, if you had a page on Wikipedia and someone put in a link to an outside site claiming that you were a pedophile, we could not excuse it as an "outside source" that will write whatever it writes. We would take it down because what it charges is presumably false and scurrilous.] There are more thoughtful and insightful criticisms of Ithaca from better informed sources. The FR article states things that are factually wrong. If you want to include criticism, then you should choose your sources better.

    Qphilo 09:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

    The reference to the City of Evil from the Ithaca Journal is not varifiable without paid subscription to the Journal archives. Is there a free site version of this reference? Also, from what is listed this appears to be only an editorial reference to the term in general discussion. I think lack of common or accepted usage of City of Evil warrents further trimming of this section in the main article and removal of the sentence regarding city of evil usage in the Ithaca Journal.Mookypants 21:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

    Deleted reference to Ithaca Journal writer referencing the City of Evil term. Felt it was a trivial fact that overstated the popularity of the term City of Evil and the reference required a paid subscription to confirm.

    Also suggest deleting the reference to Sodom road and associated photo as trivial. Many towns have roads with negative meanings that are actually named after people. Wikipedia showing the photo here under this context is creating or substantiating a given opinion, rather than reporting on non-trivial facts and/or a widely held belief. For instance the town also has a Titus road, which when you view the sign from the right angle looks like Tit road. A photo of a Tit road sign to substantiate the evilness of the city may be funny, it may show that we can poke fun at Ithaca (which is good and I support, just not here), but a Tit road photo does not belong in an encyclopedia. Neither does the photo of Sodom road. Maybe if Sodom road is used in a different neutral source to show the city's evil nature. A user photo posted here only creates an opinion, rather than reporting on an existing one. Mookypants 00:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

    The reference to Sodom Road could be considered valid if the name figured in some way in the "City of Evil" campaign. (I don't know if it did, and I don't feel like wading through freerepublic.com to check this.) But the photo doesn't really provide any additional information, so I vote for removing it. --24.58.13.127 20:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

    Deleted sodom road photo and text based on logic above. Mookypants 23:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Merging Ithaca Commons into article

    It seems more than reasonable to merge the Ithaca Commons article in with this article. Not only is the Ithaca Commons article a stub, but it is not so much its own location as a location within Ithaca. It would fit well within its own section in the Ithaca, New York article. -- Natalya 02:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

    I think a better idea is to expand the Ithaca Commons article a bit. It's worthy of its own article as one of the few remaining pedestrian malls in the United States. Quinten 01:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

    Agree with Quinten. being a location within a city doesn't mean it isn't its own location as well- for a somewhat rediculous example, 42nd Street gets its own article, as do Brooklyn, Queens, and etc. obviously not the same notability tier, but being a stub and being a place within a place (as ALL places are, except possibly the universe itself) aren't really enough to effect a merger. --He:ah? 05:05, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Ithaca and connections to Interstates

    This is a bit nit-picky, but while it is relatively rare that Ithaca is not directly connected to the Interstate system (and lacks a "non-Interstate" limited access connection as well,) it is not the ONLY small city for which this is true. You don't even have to go far to find another example: Auburn, NY, a slightly larger city roughly 40 miles north of Ithaca, lacks both too. -- Ithacagorges 03:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Ithaca from Homer's Odyssey

    The City of Ithaca (named for the Greek island of Ithaca in Homer's Odyssey)...

    Is there any evidence to suggest that it is the fictional appearance of Ithaca in The Odyssey that served as the inspiration for the city's name, rather than, simply, the Greek Ithaca as it exists outside the myth? Omphaloscope » talk 11:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

    Reply: I believe I put that there. AFAIK there is no record of Simeon DeWitt's thinking, but the sequence of events is suggestive: Ulysses (the township) was named several years before DeWitt moved to Ithaca and named it. Ithaca at the time was part of Ulysses township (as the article says). So the inference is clear -- DeWitt was coming "home" to Ithaca, as did Ulysses (Odyseus). I have heard this since I was a child, and I believe it was mentioned in the Norris place name book, since re-issued. Blauwkoe 11:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Merge

    Another user flagged Ithaca (city) for merger with this article, either unaware of or unconvinced by the argument above (from early 2005) that (city) and (town) should have separate articles. Are there any opinions about this in light of the subsequent year and more of changing wikipedia practice? I feel that the two other articles should be merged with this one. Jlittlet 03:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

    This article starts "The City of Ithaca"; Ithaca (city) starts "Ithaca is a city" and is a stub anyway. Now if Ithaca (city), New York is about the City of Ithaca and Ithaca (town), New York) is about the Town of Ithaca, what is this article supposed to be about? I understand you want distinct articles for Town and City, but only one of each, please! Delete one, move one, add a parenthesis to a title for clarification, do something to simplify this because right now there's an Ithaca (town), Ithaca (city), and an ambiguous Ithaca.--Loodog 04:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

    I agree with merger - it would be much easier to read if there was a single article for Ithaca that included an explanation of the local Government boundaries (a map would be fantastic if available) - although I have not spent more than a few days in Ithaca, it seems to me that the city/town distinction is artificial, and that the large institutions outside the city centre certainly look inwards for services etc. 62.25.109.194 10:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

    There currently is one merged article: This one. The city and town articles are only for their respective demographic stats. Someone also added a bit of info to the town article, but generally I believe both entities should be discussed in one article. NY government really is annoying that way. Other examples of this dual mess include Binghamton and Rome. And there's many more... -newkai t-c 13:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

    See also: Plattsburgh, NY which directs to the city. If you arrived at Ithaca, New York as a random user of wikipedia, you would have been seeking information about the city, its culture, its climate, social issues, the terrible weather, hippies, etc...
    The most useful format for the average wikipedia user is to have one large complete article that is the same as the city article, and either a stub article or fleeting reference for the Town. After all, history and culture in the Town are not happening in some bizarre vacuum; they happen in what the layman would just call "Ithaca".
    If you disagree with me and decide to keep three articles, rename this one to something a little less vague (e.g. Ithaca (region), or Ithaca (MSA)), and do one of the following PLEASE:
    • Have "Ithaca, New York" direct to disambig page between the three.
    • Pick one page for "Ithaca, New York" to go to and at the very top write "This is an article about X, for Y, see Y*, for Z, see Z*
    As it is, this is inherently confusing to someone wanting to follow-up on some Ithaca reference his friend made, or decide if (s)he wants to go to Cornell.--Loodog 21:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
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