Ithaca Literary Tour Preview

1

702 North Cayuga St: Junot Díaz's Home

Author Junot Díaz (b. 1968) lived here at 702 North Cayuga Street while completing his M.F.A. from Cornell University. After his graduation in 1995, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012.LISTEN HERE

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2

212 Cascadilla St: Alex Haley's Home

Author Alex Haley lived at this house at 212 Cascadilla Street, built in 1910, for six weeks after his birth in 1921. His family then moved to Tennessee.LISTEN HERE

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3

Alex Haley Municipal Pool

Alex Haley (1921-1922) was born in Ithaca while his father, Simon, completed a master's degree in agriculture at Cornell University. The family moved to Tennessee only six weeks after Haley's birth, but Ithaca honors the writer and his legacy with the Alex Haley Pool and accompanying mural. Haley is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965).LISTEN HERE

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4

Buffalo Street Books

Founded in 1975, The Bookery reflects the academic and cultural elements of our community. We have a large selection of used and rare books in our store and online. Our shelves feature used and rare books about New York and local history, art, architecture, science, fiction, poetry, and—unique to this region—a large selection in French, German, and Spanish.LISTEN HERE

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5

The Bookery

**Please note - After 45 years in business The Bookery closed in 2019**Founded in 1975, The Bookery reflects the academic and cultural elements of our community. We have a large selection of used and rare books in our store and online. Our shelves feature used and rare books about New York and local history, art, architecture, science, fiction, poetry, and—unique to this region—a large selection in French, German, and Spanish.LISTEN HERE

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6

The History Center's Local History Research Library

The History Center Research Library & Archives is a place for discovery about Tompkins County's past. The History Center’s research library serves casual browsers and scholars, school children, local historians, genealogists, and professional researchers. Along with providing access to diverse archival materials on local history and culture, The History Center is equipped to make professional quality photographic copy prints and scans of photographs from our extensive photo collections. Learn more at thehistorycenter.net/archivesLISTEN HERE

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7

Autumn Leaves

60,000 books, 10,000 records & a Cafe, all under one roof.Autumn Leaves offers the selection & quality of a new book store at used book prices. Our spacious, well lit store is designed for comfortable browsing, with a knowledgeable staff to help you.LISTEN HERE

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8

Tompkins County Public Library

Tompkins County Public Library (Ithaca, New York), founded in 1864 by Ezra Cornell, serves the 104,926 residents of Tompkins County and is the Central Library for the Finger Lakes Library System, serving libraries and users in Tompkins, Tioga, Cortland, Seneca and Cayuga counties.Some interesting statistics:More than 235,000 items in the collection38,000 registered borrowers7,000 social media followersLISTEN HERE

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9

105 Cascadilla Park St: William Kennedy's Home

Before winning the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Ironweed, author William Kennedy (b. 1928) spent a sabbatical year in 1982-1983 living at 105 Cascadilla Park Street and teaching writing at Cornell University. Using funds from a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Kennedy then helped found the New York State Writers Institute at the University of Albany. Other notable works include Legs (1975) and Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (1978).LISTEN HERE

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10

900 Stewart Ave: Carl Sagan's Home

This empty building at 900 Stewart Avenue was originally built in 1925 in the style of an Egyptian tomb as home of the Sphinx Head Senior Honor Society at Cornell University. It was substantially remodeled over the years, with astronomy professor Carl Sagan (1934-1996) purchasing it in 1991 and overseeing major renovations. Sagan co-authored or edited over 20 popular science books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Dragons of Eden (1977), as well as Broca's Brain (1979), Contact (1985), and Pale Blue Dot (1994).LISTEN HERE

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11

Belleayre Apartments: Vladimir Nabokov's Apartment

Novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) spent a decade in Ithaca teaching Russian and European literature at Cornell University, but he rarely lived in one place for long. He spent the 1954-1955 academic year living in apartment #30 of the Bellayre Apartments at 700 Stewart Avenue. Nabokov's Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962) are considered to be among the greatest novels of the twentieth century, while his memoir Speak, Memory (1951) has been similarly recognized as a notable work of nonfiction.LISTEN HERE

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12

Baker Dormitories: E. B. White's Freshman Dorm

Children's author E. B. White (1899-1985) spent most of his freshman year at Cornell in 1917-1918 living in the Baker Dormitories on West Campus. Although he spent his first few days in a cramped Sheldon Court room in Collegetown, he quickly relocated to more spacious campus accomodations.LISTEN HERE

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13

Libe Slope

The opening of Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) mentions "a sunrise over the library slope at Cornell University that nobody out on it had seen because the slope faces west." Pynchon (b. 1937) spent four years in Ithaca with a break in the middle to serve in the U.S. Navy before graduating from Cornell in 1959. It was at Cornell that he met fellow student and author Richard Fariña, who wrote the popular counterculture novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1966) based on experiences at Cornell. During Pynchon's sophmore year in 1954-1955, he lived at the base of Cornell's Libe Slope in Mennen Hall.LISTEN HERE

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14

Delta Upsilon Fraternity: Kurt Vonnegut's Apartment

6 South Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850Kurt Vonnegut joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity and lived here at 6 South Avenue as a sophomore and junior at Cornell University from 1941 until he dropped out in 1943. His father had been a member of the same fraternity at MIT. Vonnegut and his roommate called their fraternity room the Blue Moose Lodge, named after a moth-eaten moose head that they painted blue and mounted on the wall with a brassiere strung between the antlers. Vonnegut began his writing career during this period as a contributor and editor with The Cornell Daily Sun.LISTEN HERE

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15

Cascadilla Hall: Toni Morrison's Dorm

Before she was famed author Toni Morrison, she was Cornell student Chloe Wofford. Wofford lived in Cornell's Cascadilla Hall dormitory while completing her master's degree in 1954-1955. She would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987) and the Nobel Prize in 1993. Her other works include Song of Solomon (1977) and The Bluest Eye (1970).LISTEN HERE

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16

Sheldon Court

Sheldon Court opened as a private dormitory for Cornell students in 1903 and was eventually purchased by the university in 1955. Many notable Cornellians lived here, including children's author E. B. White, Class of 1921, who moved in shortly after his arrival in Ithaca in 1917. White described his room as "an incredible cell, shaped like a wedge of pie and about the size of a broom closet." After five days at Sheldon, he relocated to Baker Hall on West Campus.LISTEN HERE

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17

226 Linden Ave: Richard Fariña Apartment

Author Richard Fariña (1937-1966), who wrote the popular counterculture novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1966) based on experiences at Cornell, lived in this house at 226 Linden Avenue in fall 1958. His friend, author Thomas Pynchon, also lived here off and on with Fariña. The setting for much of Fariña's novel is Ithaca's Collegetown, although the names have been changed to Mentor University in the town of Athene.LISTEN HERE

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18

957 East State St: Vladimir Nabokov's Home

When Vladimir Nabokov first arrived in Ithaca in July 1948, he moved into this 957 East State Street home of a vacationing faculty member until the end of the summer. He would return to live here again in late summer 1953 through 1954 while finishing work on his novel Lolita (1955).LISTEN HERE

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19

802 East Seneca St: Vladimir Nabokov's Home

Vladimir Nabokov rarely stayed in one Ithaca home for more than a year, with this residence being an exception. The Nabokovs considered 802 East Seneca Street to be too large, drafty, and costly, but they stayed from fall 1948 to 1950.LISTEN HERE

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20

702 East Buffalo St: Thomas Pynchon's Apartment

During his junior year at Cornell University from 1957 to 1958, author Thomas Pynchon resided here at 702 East Buffalo Street. LISTEN HERE

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21

109 Williams St: Kurt Vonnegut's Apartment

As a freshman at Cornell University from 1940 to 1941, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) boarded here at 109 Williams Street. After dropping out in 1943, Vonnegut become an enormously successful novelist, whose fourteen novels include Player Piano (1952), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).LISTEN HERE

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