Cornell University opened in 1868 on some of Ezra Cornell’s farm land atop East Hill overlooking Cayuga Lake. Many of the 332 original freshman climbed the legendary Buffalo Street hill to the new campus that October day, finding one gray, austere building, Morrill Hall, barely completed for their classes and dormitory space.
Ithaca’s steep hills and harsh winters have become synonymous with the Cornell experience. The famous American writer, E. B. White, talked about putting on his sheepskin coat the first of November to dig in for the long winter while he was a Cornell student in the early twenties. He liked to recall those cold mornings before six when he trudged up the hill from the downtown offices of the Cornell Daily Sun—he was editor-in-chief—after putting the paper together for another day, watching the lighthouses shimmer on the inlet and feeling glad he had come to such a grand place.
The campus is well known for its spectacular scenery with trails winding down rocky gorges and foot bridges over waterfalls that drop hundreds of feet. Unfortunately the sheer drops are also a temptation for those who can no longer cope with life. Students and townspeople have committed suicide down these precipitous slopes in spite of high guard rails that have gone up over campus bridges. It’s a dismal part of local reality that isn’t talked about.
The Wharton brothers, Theodore and Leopold, saw the filming possibilities of this dramatic scenery and turned Ithaca into the little film capital of the East between 1912 and 1920, churning out the popular melodramatic silent movies of the day with Irene Castle, Pearl White, and Lionel Barrymore. Heroines were thrown off cliffs, trolleys plunged down gorges, canoes were swept over roaring waterfalls, and bridges were blown up. Their operation folded when they ran out of money and Hollywood became the uncontested movie center of the world. By then Hollywood producers had started using more advanced filming techniques and the mild California climate made it easy to film year-round.
Because of the college-town atmosphere, it was probably inevitable that a town-gown division would eventually crop up. In the literal sense Cornell, high above Cayuga’s waters, looked down on the town below, and as the university grew in stature and reputation around the world, the contrast and tension between locals and Comellians increased. But the town knows that it prospers because of Cornell and Ithaca College, its other seat of learning on South Hill. The campuses define the town and are the drawing cards for people and business to settle there. Tourists often come from big metropolitan areas looking for a slower pace of life, clean air, and less crime. Migration picked up pace in the sixties and seventies and is still going on.
Many college students in the 1960s and 1970s reacted to the country’s upheaval by dropping out of school and making Ithaca their permanent home. A walk on Ithaca’s Commons is proof that the place remains a haven for alternative lifestyles. The small melting pot of well-informed Ithacans support all sorts of causes from saving the rain forests and whales to freeing Tibet and preserv ing Guatamala’s Indian culture.
Small business firms, mostly home-grown, stay in Ithaca because it has a reputation for good public schools and a busy sports and cultural calendar. It’s an attractive place for middle-management and other professional families to settle. It is also Cornell that sets the wage level for the area, which businesses must find appealing, since pay scales are relatively low, especially for clerical and blue-collar workers. Many residents commute to nearby Elmira, Owego, Binghamton, or Syracuse for higher wages. The few technical companies in Ithaca that hire skilled workers and professionals are small concerns with relatively few employees.
Although New York City is less than a five-hour drive down Route 17, when you’re in Ithaca, the city seems light-years away. No passenger trains come to Ithaca, and flights are infrequent at the small county airport.
Part of the area’s remoteness is planned, since no four-lane highways connect it to Syracuse and Binghamton, the two large cities nearby. A fight between developers and environmentalists has gone on for decades, especially over adding highways. So far, the purists have won. The steep and curvy two-lane roads that wind in and out of Ithaca add to the feeling of being sequestered. This is especially true during the winter when snow and ice are apt to keep roads hazardous. Local devotees will tell you, however, that it is the pristine white of snow-covered hills contrasting with the deep blue lake and sky of winter that brings out Ithaca’s extraordinary beauty. But they may not mention the climate: long, harsh winters and many overcast days.
The city of Ithaca is surrounded by towns and villages; most are residential communities with pockets of commercial activity. The more affluent neighborhoods are situated in the northeast part of town, which includes Cayuga Heights, the area’s gold coast.
These upscale communities contrast sharply with run-down trailer parks and shabby houses that sit on the edges of prosperity and dot the countryside. The majority of the small family farms on the outskirts of town are second-income endeavors: many look like transplants from Appalachia. There is no heavy industry in the region; most unskilled people work for one of the colleges or in the service industry.
Most of the city’s less advantaged black citizens still live on the south side of town, where housing is often sub-standard. The more prosperous blacks are scattered throughout the area. Racial tension bubbles beneath the surface, erupting on occasion with incidents that usually involve young black men, the police, and drugs, in lively street disturbances in the Cleveland Street section.
Ellis Hollow, one of Ithaca’s most desirable places to live today, is located on the east side of the city in the Town of Dryden. It was Ellis Village in the 1800s, supporting five mills (powered by the waters of Cascadilla Creek), a lumber business, its own school, post office, blacksmith shop, and general store. The stony soil made farming marginal but allowed for a productive quarry, which is still in use. Families broke their rural isolation by being good neighbors and forming a close-knit community where they often got together for socials and church.
People began to move into town to work at the turn of the century, and it wasn’t until automobiles made commuting practical did Ellis Hollow transform itself into a residential area. In 1952 a few families renovated the old one-room schoolhouse into a community center to recapture the neighborliness of the past.
Ellis Hollow appeals to outdoor types who run and cycle in all kinds of weather. Ellis Hollow Road runs seven miles through the valley eastwest, beginning at the East Hill Plaza Shopping Center and ending at State Highway 79. Among the gentle hills and dense woods Nineteenth-Century farmhouses contrast with elaborate, expensive homes built during the 1970s and 1980s. Although the area today is far different from 1799 when Peleg Ellis cleared the wilderness to build his log cabin, it has kept a measure of its independence and isolation. Tract developments are prohibited, allowing individual taste and spacious lots to remain the norm.
Most Ellis Hollow residents today are affluent and white. When Tony and Dodie Harris moved to the area in 1985 and decided to build their dream house on Ellis Hollow Road, they were looking for a country setting and a close-knit community. They wanted to be near people who cared about each other and especially about children. They liked the activities and facilities of the community center: swimming pool, tennis courts, an outdoor skating rink, ball fields, and programs for all ages. The Hollow seemed an ideal spot to raise their family.
Senior Investigator David McElligott planned to take his two younger children Christmas shopping later that Saturday morning, December 23, to help them buy a present for their mother. It was the first day of his vacation.