Planning Board Meets To Address Concerns Over Future Projects

By wpengine | November 27, 2002

The City of Ithaca Planning and Development Board met yesterday to discuss issues including approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the West Campus Residential Initiative and Cornell’s proposed new Life Science and Technology building.

At the meeting, many members of the Ithaca and Cornell community voiced their concerns about the placement of the proposed parking lot and water tank on the block below Stewart Avenue and above University Avenue.

The board also voted to become the lead agency in the project to build the new Life Science and Technology building on the current site of Alumni Fields, which will require moving the playing fields to a currently undetermined site in the town of Ithaca.

Many members of the community expressed concern with the proposed parking lot. Adam November ’03, president of 660 Stewart Ave. Cooperative expressed his fear about the impact on the neighborhood.

“We currently have to replace our roof and because of the historic nature of both our building and neighborhood, we must preserve the historic style during construction, leading to a much greater expense,” November said. “We feel that the environmental aesthetic and the security issues of the parking lot and water tower as well as the increased traffic make the current site unacceptable.”

Barbara Hubbard, a resident of 214 University Ave. echoed November’s sentiments.

“The double crushing blow of the water tank and the parking lot will destroy our neighborhood and a part of the city’s history,” Hubbard said.

Many residents worried that both the parking lot and the water tank would reduce the neighborhood’s historic and aesthetic qualities and increase pedestrian and automotive traffic, reducing property values and damaging the area’s “livability.”

“One only has to look at Collegetown and Cayuga Heights to see the impact that Cornell can have on surrounding areas,” said University Ave. resident Jeff Hanavan. “Our neighborhood, our homes, our safety and our lives are concerned.”

The water tank in question was actually proposed by the City of Ithaca Water and Sewer Department. Currently, the two possible sites are adjacent to the Delta Phi (Llenroc) fraternity or at the north end of the proposed Cornell West Campus parking lot near the intersection of University and Lake avenues.

“We are trying to do what’s best for the residents of this neighborhood,” said board member Jane Marcham. “A lot of people just don’t want to live across the street from a parking lot or a water tank.”

Board member Ellen McCollister expressed her worries about Cornell moving closer to the residential area.

“I am concerned about the migration into a residential neighborhood, with its impact on the desirability of the area as well as the impact on the historic Carriage Path,” she said.

Board member G. P. Zurenda Jr. was vocal about his concern for the safety of students walking up the Carriage Path to Stewart Avenue and West Campus. He asked that the University consider alternate sites, including the possibility of underground parking below the new dorms.

“I understand that the cost is higher for underground spots, but I personally would pay a lot more for a spot downstairs underground as opposed to walking uphill at night,” Zurenda said.

Kathryn Wolf, a partner of the firm Trowbridge & Wolf, the firm that is handling the design for the University, was able to address many of the board members’ concerns, but the issue of security remained a topic of debate.

“The CUPD agrees that safety is not an issue. We have the data from all of the other parking lots on campus for the past five years and there have been only four incidents,” Wolf said. “The lot is similar to others on campus and safety is really not a concern.”

Despite Wolf’s assurances, the board still decided to wait until its Dec. 5 meeting to vote on the FEIS in order to give the University time to present more information on the safety concerns. If the board considers the FEIS plan complete, it has a minimum of 10 days and a maximum of 30 to vote on the approval of the FEIS.

Archived article by Gautham Nagesh

Residents Meet to Discuss Southside Development

By wpengine December 2, 2002

On Saturday residents and business people from Ithaca’s Southside neighborhood — the area bounded by Spencer Road, Route 13, State Street and North Geneva Street — attended a summit to share their visions of specific neighborhood improvements. Many attendees were pleased that the meeting had been organized. “I think it’s needed because as cities grow, and this one is growing, there has got to be some planning ahead of it,” said Southside resident Gloria Landes. Residents found this meeting particularly exciting because it solicited the input of Ithaca residents. Members of the Ithaca community and Cornell’s city and regional planning department organized the summit. Attendees were organized into eight groups to discuss major areas of local concern: traffic, park space, local economic development, housing stock and Southside’s community center, youth development, resident diversity and public safety. These groups brainstormed for two hours, coming up with between two and four dozen projects each. Three planning professionals then gave feedback regarding how feasible these plans were. Each group then identified three goals: an immediate project that could be organized using just volunteers, a short-term project that would take two to three years and cost up to $50,000, and finally one long-term project that would cost up to $300,000 and involve hiring full time employees. This scheme was designed to give residents a chance to prioritize their ideas. Some of the ideas that came out of the meeting included developing a neighborhood watch program, creating a neighborhood newsletter, writing a home-ownership handbook and inserting “traffic calming” devices, such as speed bumps in residential areas. The Southside is a particularly diverse neighborhood. “The Southside neighborhood was predominantly black, now there is a significant Latino, Asian and Eastern European community, as well as graduate students and professionals from Cornell University.” said Prof. Ken Reardon, city and regional planning, and a summit organizer. Residents would like to promote bringing these groups together. One of the ways in which they wish to do this is by utilizing the Southside Community Center. Eleanor Roosevelt gathered the initial funds for the Community Center and granted it to “people of color” in Tompkins County. However, the Center needs some more financial and participatory support from the community. “Although it’s no fault of the community, there has been weakening between the center and the community,” Reardon said. Residents also want to improve housing stock by making more renters into homeowners. This would mean assisting these renters with down payments on homes. Aside, from increasing the value of houses, residents believe that making more renters into homeowners will increase the stake they have in the community. Ithaca’s crime prevention program depends heavily on communication between the police and the community. Recently problems of illegal substance abuse have re-surfaced. Residents have also been concerned about trying to mobilize the community’s resources to expand programs offered in schools. Cornell has been instrumental in helping the community realize some of its goals. Its city and regional planning department has made a five-year commitment to help organize and plan for the summit and develop the resulting ideas. Students taking Community Service Fieldwork in the city and regional planning department have functioned as the “arms and legs” of the planners and residents. They have conducted pre-summit meetings among residents, surveyed open spaces, collected and organized a 40-page data book. In the spring 12 of the 30 students in the class intend to continue working on this project. This is the second year of the five-year commitment. Last year, a different group of students helped organize a summit for the Northside community and will work with another community next year. Cornell also intends to lease 75 percent of the space in an eight-story building to be built downtown on the corner of Seneca and Tioga streets. This will provide a stable University presence on the Commons and further connect Cornell to the city. “This reflects an awareness of how complex these problems are and the need for a long-term partnership, from the drawing board to the ground wire,” Reardon said.Archived article by Matthew Vernon
Spotlight On: Campus Memorials

By wpengine December 2, 2002

A simple gray granite bench, situated along Olin Library’s northern walkway, lies low to the ground, hardly noticed by passers-by. The inscription — “In memory of Steven D. Gaynor ’64, 1942-1961” — beckons observers to uncover the mystery of what caused the 19-year-old’s premature death. Dedicating a bench has become a traditional way of remembering young Cornell students who have lost their lives during or soon after their undergraduate years. One of the oldest campus memorials is a stone bench placed on Libe Slope by Prof. Bernhard E. Fernow (for whom Fernow Hall is named) in memory of his daughter Gordon, who died one semester before her graduation in 1902. Most recently, the family of Michelle A. Evans ’01 dedicated a memorial bench in her name on Stimson Hall Plaza, one year after she was killed by a bus while crossing Wait Avenue. University Archivist Elaine D. Engst has wondered why benches are generally used as memorials for students who died during their Cornell years. “I’m not sure quite why a bench is a fitting memorial to a young person,” Engst said. According to Inge T. Reichenbach, vice president for alumni affairs and development, “Memorials are always initiated by family or friends of the deceased.” She explained that is why not everyone who dies has a memorial. “And it is family and friends who decide on the kind of memorial they would like to have,” she added. “Benches, obviously, are very popular.” Their popularity may derive from the relative cost and ease of approval of installing a bench versus some other marker. Reichenbach explained that costs of memorials are paid for by the friends or family of the deceased, “and the gift has to be large enough to cover the initial costs as well as the ongoing care for the memorial.” Each request must also come before the University’s Committee on Memorials and Named Facilities, Reichenbach said. That goes for requests to name a building or any other space, or to erect a memorial. Reichenbach chairs the committee, which also includes two faculty members, the provost or her delegate, the Vice President for Administration or his? Her? delegate and the director of University development. “The persons who would like to establish a memorial provide the committee with the proposed wording and the design. The committee’s job is to make sure that the wording is appropriate for Cornell and the occasion and that the designs are consistent across the University,” Reichenbach said. Her committee meets four times a year but addresses pressing requests via mail, e-mail or phone, she explained. The designs and the inscriptions for the memorial benches vary widely. The Sheldon Memorial Exedra, for example a white marble seat shaped in a semi-circle around a sundial is far more elaborate than Gordon Fernow’s stone block tucked into Libe Slope downhill from Morrill Hall. And the words carved into the bench remembering Lauren Pickard ’90 are far more descriptive than those inscribed on a bench for Gaynor. Fernow’s memorial remembers a robust, athletic young woman who, after a brief stay at the University infirmary, died of septic fever (similar to blood poisoning) on January 3, 1902. She was 21 years old. The inscription on the stone has been beaten so badly by Ithaca weather that the words “Gordon Fernow, KKG [Kappa Kappa Gamma], To all lovers of nature,” are hardly visible. The simple ornamentation and inscription, however, suit her personality. Fernow was an avid lover of the outdoors. At her memorial service, Prof. G.L. Burr remembered “how, in a four-mile lope through the Adirondack woods roads, I found Gordon Fernow my full match. This endurance was both outcome and condition of her boundless love of out-of-doors. True forester’s daughter that she was, no tramp could weary, no roughing daunt her.” The Sheldon Memorial Exedra, in contrast, was placed by Charles Lacy Sheldon in honor of his two sons, Franklin Lacy Sheldon 1892 and Charles Lacy Sheldon, Jr. 1901, M.A. 1902. Franklin died in 1895 and Charles, Jr. followed in 1908. The younger Charles Lacy Sheldon was a member of Psi Upsilon Fraternity and, according to his alumni file in the University Archives of Kroch Library, became the manager of Sheldon Court and owner of the first-story Triangle Book Shop in 1902. Around the sundial is written “As a shadow, such is life.” According to Elaine Engst, University Archivist, the Sheldon Memorial Exedra “was actually restored when Kroch Library was built between 1990 and 1992.” One of the more descriptive inscriptions rests on a stone bench surrounded by rose bushes on Libe Slope, to the left of the subterranean reading room or Cocktail Lounge. Written in memory of Pickard, it reads, “Her joie de vivre heightened the senses of everyone she touched. We embrace her always in our hearts.” Gaynor’s modest bench leaves more to be discovered. Newspaper accounts from December 18, 1961 tell how Gaynor was killed the day before in a car accident when his sports car was hit from behind by a tractor trailer. The driver of the truck had fallen asleep at the wheel at 4 a.m., as Gaynor, a pre-med student majoring in zoology and his friend Hanley M. Horwitz ’64 were driving to Buffalo to visit Horwitz’s parents. Gaynor died instantly of a fractured skull, and Horwitz was treated for facial lacerations and abrasions at Brooks Memorial Hospital in Buffalo. The driver of the tractor trailer, 24-year-old Albert Gardner, was unhurt. “He was charged with reckless driving, fined $100 and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. A charge of criminal negligence is pending investigation by the state police,” the newspaper said. A more visible memorial bench, made of wood and flanked by evergreens, sits behind Day Hall on the path between Sage Chapel and the Campus Store. It reads, “Dedicated to the memory of Clay Johnson, Jeffrey Melvin. Sigma Nu. They live within us.” Johnson ’79 and Melvin ’81 were fraternity brothers who died on March 3, 1979. They were driving back with four other Sigma Nu brothers from a party in Cortland when their car was hit by another vehicle carrying a young couple. The couple’s car “was traveling north on Route 13 when it crossed into the southbound land, colliding broadside with the car full of fraternity brothers, driven by Johnson, which was traveling south,” said the report in the Syracuse Post Standard. The newest bench remembering a young Cornell student was dedicated in 2001, “In loving memory of Michelle A. Evans ’01,” and is located in front of Stimson Hall. The plaque tells of Evans’ aspirations, reading, “February 8, 1979 – March 16, 2000. Devoted premedical student and dedicated biology major. She wanted to make a difference and she did.” Cornell’s first president set the precedent for dedicating benches in scenic locations when he chose the summit of the Libe Slope for his sitting legacy. Andrew Dickson White and his wife would sit for hours behind the University Library, now named Uris Library, enjoying the view of Ithaca’s western hills and Cayuga Lake. They marked their favorite spot behind the University Library with a stone bench in 1892, inscribing it with the words, “To those who shall sit here rejoicing, to those who shall sit here mourning; sympathy and greeting; so have we done in our time.” Archived article by Heather Schroeder