Brooktondale Community Mural
The Brooktondale Community Mural, located at the Brooktondale Community Center, was designed and painted in 2016 by local artist Mary Beth Ihnken, a resident of Brooktondale. The mural was the “brainchild” of the Brooktondale Community Center Board of Directors and community member John Haines-Eitzen, and was funded by a grant from the Community Arts Partnership. The mural depicts important Brooktondale landmarks, including the Old Mill, the earliest of many mills built in the area that ran on water power; a train track and station, alluding to Brooktondale’s history as a stop on a local railroad line; and the Caroline Valley Community Church, a historic building and a center of religious life and community activity. Brooktondale, a hamlet of the Town of Caroline located on Six Mile Creek, was originally called Cantinesburgh (alternatively: Cantine’s Mill or Cantinesville) for John Cantine Jr., who settled the area in 1798 on a large tract of land given him by his father, Colonel John Cantine, who was awarded several tracts of land for his service in the Revolutionary War and as a land-claims judge. Much of Tompkins County was awarded as military tracts to soldiers who had served in the Revolutionary War, and/or participated in the genocidal 1779 Sullivan-Clinton Campaign which destroyed and displaced hundreds of Haudenosaunee communities.Later, Brooktondale became known as Mott’s Corners, (alternatively: Mottsville, Mott’s Hollow, Mott’s Mill) taking its name from William Mott II, who bought up Cantine’s property in 1825. After the Mott family left the area, Mott’s Corners changed its name to Brookton, which the post office adopted in January 1883. Because of the similarity of spelling of Brookton to Brockton and Brooklyn, the Post Office Department changed the name to Brooktondale in February 1926.The red building pictured on the far right is the Old Mill, also known as the Upper Mill. The Old Mill is as old as the town of Brooktondale itself; John Cantine Jr. chose the site for the mill in 1798 as he was settling on the land, and construction on Cantine’s Mill was completed in 1800, making it one of the first grist mills in the area. In 1830, William Mott bought Cantine’s Mill and converted it into a plaster mill, and he eventually went on to own and manage six sawmills, several stores, and a furniture factory in the village. Mott’s Mill was burned in 1862 and a new mill was erected on the same site in 1865 by George White. From 1870 to 1881, Ezra Cornell’s son Frank owned the mill during this period. In the early 1890s, Frank Vorhis took over the mill, converting it into a buckwheat flour mill and constructing the Upper Mill Dam next to it in 1897 (painted to the left of the Old Mill in the mural). At its peak, the Excelsior Mill (as it was renamed by the Vorhis family) employed nine men full time who worked day and night to produce buckwheat flour. In 1921, H. C. Whitlock acquired the mill and managed it as a feed mill that continued to run on water power until at least the early 1950s, long after other mills in the area had ceased to do so. The Excelsior Mill finally came to an end when it was burned down in 1964 to make room for a highway. Today, a historic marker erected in 2002 by the Town of Caroline’s Bicentennial Committee stands next to the highway on the site of the Old Mill, commemorating its history. On the grassy patch directly below the Old Mill is a small skunk, which the artist included as a tribute to a skunk farm that was once located near Brooktondale on Bald Hill Road.The left side of the mural pays homage to the railroad station located in Brooktondale, depicting the wooden trestle built over Six Mile Creek just north of Brooktondale as well as Brookton (later Brooktondale) Station, which was located at the south end of the trestle. The trestle and the station were originally part of the Utica, Ithaca & Elmira Railroad (UI & E), which was founded in 1871 with Ezra Cornell as its principal financier. Brooktondale served as a stop on a line from East Ithaca to Van Etten, which the UI & E built to connect its Elmira-Van Etten segment with its Ithaca-Cortland segment. The wooden trestle and Brookton Station were built in 1875, and service was inaugurated on December 11, 1875. The finished trestle was an impressive 1,600 feet (~488 meters) long and 90 feet (~27 meters) high, requiring 750,000 feet (22,860 meters) of 12-inch square timbers for its construction. The wooden trestle stood until 1889, when it was replaced with an iron trestle, which was built while service remained open on the line. In 1884, the UI & E was acquired by the newly-incorporated Elmira, Cortland & Northern Railroad, which was bought out 12 years later by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company. In the early 1900s, passenger business grew, and trains became a regular feature of life in Brookton, crossing the valley several times daily. The Towns of Tompkins County (Carol Kammen, pub 1998) describes Brookton residents of that time “loading hay, potatoes, and buckwheat into the box cars, helping the station agent handle crates of eggs and chickens, sitting on the hill overlooking the track to watch the train go by” (62). The Great Depression of the 1930s dealt a devastating blow to the EC&N branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, though passenger traffic had already been declining since the mid-1920s due to increasing preference for automobiles. Despite strong public opposition, the passenger line and Brooktondale Station closed permanently in 1935, with the last passenger train, Train 325, making its last trip through Brooktondale on June 30, 1935, after nearly 60 years of service. The trestle was damaged by a flood in July of 1935, and was subsequently demolished for scrap. In the center of the mural, between the two doors, is the Caroline Valley Community Church, formerly home to the Caroline Valley Federated Church and the Brookton Congregational Church. The first congregation, known as the Congregationalists, was formed in 1863 by members of the Old Reformed Church of America and the Brookton Methodist Church. The church had three women ministers in the late 1800s to early 1900s: Annis Bertha Ford Eastmas (1889–1891), Juanita Breckenridge Bates (1892–1893), and Emily C. Woodruff (1899–1903). Breckenridge married the Town of Caroline Supervisor, Fred E. Bates, in 1893, and held positions in the NY State Suffrage Association, while Woodruff organized the Christian Endeavour Society for young people. The church building itself is the former Varna Presbyterian Church, which the Congregationalists purchased in 1868 and moved to a new foundation on land formerly owned by William Mott. The building has undergone many changes since then, with acetylene lights replacing kerosene lamps in 1921, followed by the installation of electric lights in 1925. The original steeple was blown down in a wind storm in 1925 and in 1977, the church acquired a fiberglass steeple, which was lifted by crane onto the roof. The current (as of 2021) church bell in the steeple was purchased from the Dutch Reformed Church by the Congregationalists and is likely the oldest bell in the area. The Caroline Valley Community Church is still an active part of the Brooktondale community today, hosting the Christmas Country Store crafts fair each November and community dinners on election night. LISTEN HERE
Two Row 400 Year Anniversary Mural
The Two Row 400 Year Anniversary Mural was designed and painted by Brandon Lazore (Onondaga Nation, Snipe Clan) in 2013 as part of the City of Ithaca’s resolution (June 5th 2013) in support of the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign. The mural depicts five chiefs of the original five nations of the Haudenosaunee (often misnomered as the Iroquois) complete with headdresses (gustoweh) unique to the individual nations (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora). The chiefs are standing in Lazore's modern interpretation of a longhouse and are holding three wampum belts representing historic treaties and events in Haudenosaunee and U.S. history.Wampum are beads made from white and purple mollusk (most popularly the quahog clam and channeled whelk), shells native to the ocean shores of northeastern North America. Wampum was not used as currency by the Haudenosaunee as is often misclaimed, though it was a popular trade item. Woven or strung wampum is used to signify the importance or authority of a message associated with it. Every Chief and Clan Mother in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy has a string or strings of wampum that serves as a certificate of their office. Woven wampum belts are used as mnemonic devices to aid community memory about agreements and important historic events. The Two Row Wampum (Gä•sweñta’) is the recorded treaty between the Haudenosaunee and European settlers, created after a series of meetings in 1613 between the Mohawk and Dutch immigrants who were clearing areas on Mohawk land with the intention of building permanent villages and farms. The Two Row belt (farthest to the left) depicts two purple lines travelling parallel on a field of white beads. One of the purple rows was meant to depict the Haundeosaunee way of life, the other row the Dutch. Each of their ways of life would be shown in the purple rows running the length of a wampum belt. “In one row is a ship with our White Brothers’ ways; in the other a canoe with our ways. Each will travel down the river of life side by side. Neither will attempt to steer the other’s vessel.” The Haudenosaunee and the Dutch agreed on three principles to make this treaty last. The first was friendship; the Haudenosaunee and their white brothers will live in friendship. The second principle is peace; there will be peace between their two people. The final principle is forever; that this agreement will last forever.The Two Row is considered a living treaty by the Haudenosaunee. In 2013, the Onondaga Nation and Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) developed a statewide educational campaign to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the treaty. It was during this campaign that the City of Ithaca in collaboration with the Multicultural Resource Center passed a resolution in support of the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign passed by the Common Council, signed by Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick and 2nd Ward Representative Seph Murtagh. Brandon Lazore’s mural design won a public contest offered by the City of Ithaca to reaffirm Ithaca’s commitment to the ideals of the Two Row Treaty. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution affirms all treaties as the “supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” As such, treaties between the governments of nations are active living agreements, although the U.S. government has rarely followed the law of its own founding documents in regards to treaties with Native American nations. The center wampum belt is the Hiawatha Belt, which is also the official Haudenosaunee/Iroquois National Flag. The symbols depict the original five nations of the Haudenosaunee: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk (the Tuscarora joined in the 1700s) and an iconic meeting in which Hiawatha, an influential speaker and messenger for the Peacemaker, convinced the warring nations to bury their weapons beneath a white pine and agree to become one peaceful nation living in a shared “longhouse” with one law, one heart, and one mind. The nations, represented by the boxes, and the Tree of Peace are connected with lines, indicating a united confederacy of nations. This is the founding agreement of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy established over 1,000 years ago. The belt held by the chiefs on the right represents the George Washington Belt, also called the Great Chain or the Covenant Belt. It is the treaty belt that President George Washington presented to the Haudenosaunee leaders at Canandaigua, NY, in 1794. The original belt is six feet long. The thirteen human figures symbolize the original thirteen colonies of the the young and newly formed United States of America. The two smaller figures and the house in the center represent the older and established Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Each of the figures are linked by a wampum belt to form a chain of friendship which represents the alliance between the United States and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.On the far left of the mural, now partially covered by plant growth, is a representation of the Remembrance Belt, which depicts a human figure standing above an open diamond, with a long line extending from the human’s head that ends in a cross. This belt is known by a number of names, and its meanings have inspired different interpretations over the years. Cayuga Chief Jacob E. Thomas, or Teiohonwé:thon has offered these interpretations of the belt on The Jake Thomas Learning Centre website:This belt (Rononshonni:ton Ka’nikonri:io’ Raha:wi – Mohawk language) represents the Peacemaker who brings peace, power and righteousness.The Prophecy Belt signifies the coming of the Peacemaker to the Earth. The line running along the belt shows his descent from the Sky-world.The far right of the mural depicts the Neverending Tree of Peace or the Dust Fan Belt. This belt is very old, and is considered a founding document of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy along with the Hiawatha Belt. One interpretation of the design of the belt references the Tree of Peace, the white pine that the Peacemaker instructed the leaders of the warring nations to bury their weapons beneath before they became the Confederacy. The second meaning of this belt is to remind the chiefs of each nation to calmly deliberate in decision-making for the betterment of their people. The belt symbolizes the sweeping away of dust so the council can see the best path forward. Inner panels of the mural depict vital traditional crops of the Haudenosaunee: strawberries, the first fruit of summer, and the Three Sisters; corn, beans, and squash. The Three Sisters made up the staple foods of the Haudenosaunee and were grown in a mutually beneficial planting pattern managed and maintained by the women of the tribe. LISTEN HERE
Karen Mural Project
**Please note, the Karen Mural Project was removed from the site in 2021 due to renovations by the property owners**The Karen Mural Project was completed over the course of a month in 2019 by Karen and Burman teen members of the 4-H Urban Outreach Program at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County with help of local artist Dan Burgevin. The mural depicts Karen-Burman refugee families journeying to Ithaca to escape genocide in Myanmar (formerly Burma). The first panel shows a girl hiding in the forest as her village burns behind her. The second panel shows Karen families fleeing to refugee camps in neighboring Thailand. The third panel features a glowing sunset, a plane on tarmac, and Ithaca landmarks such as the Immaculate Conception Church on Seneca Street. The Immaculate Conception Church was built in 1898, replacing an earlier church that had been built on Seneca Street in 1860. The mural is painted along a fence owned by Shortstop Deli (est. 1978) and was painted with the agreement of store owner Chuck Dong and the Shortstop staff.The text at the bottom of the mural reads:"Flowers and butterfly mask the genocide on the Karen People. A girl hiding in the Burmese forest from the brutal military junta. Many Karen crossed the Sarawren to peace and security in Thailand. Starting new families, they obtained refugee status and eventually came to USA where they vote, work, and live free!"The mural and program were made possible thanks to the Cornell University Public Service Center, Park Foundation, Short Stop, Ithaca Murals, Ithaca Asian American Association, Ithaca Housing Authority and many individual community members. The Karen peoples of Myanmar and Thailand are an ethnolinguistic group numbering approximately five million people. It is estimated by some linguists that they migrated to present-day Myanmar between 300 and 800 CE. Long-term tensions arose between the Karen cultural groups and the Burman majority during the Japanese occupation of the region during WWII. The Karen National Union was formed in 1947 and has served as a governmental structure for the Karen peoples since then. Conflict between the Karen and the majority-Burman government continued through the end of the 20th century, with country-wide uprisings and general strikes against the Burman military dictatorship coming to a head in August of 1988. In September of 1988, the government announced a new military ruler, imposed martial law, and banned all public demonstrations. The military began a coordinated crackdown on all demonstrators and ethnic-minority groups across the country in the following months and years. In 2004, the BBC estimated that up to 200,000 Karen had been driven from their homes during the decades of war, with nearly 160,000 Karen living in semi-permanent refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. Karen refugees began resettling in the United States and Canada in the early 2000s. There are large Karen populations in Minnesota, Nebraska, southern California, and central New York. The first Karen to move to Ithaca arrived in 2006.In 2016, Ithaca’s Common Council voted unanimously to make an official declaration that the city of Ithaca will be a welcoming community for all refugees. In 2017, Catholic Charities of Tompkins and Tioga Counties applied to formally establish Ithaca as a resettlement community for those escaping persecution in their home countries. The initial application accepted refugees from eight countries: Myanmar, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bhutan, Ukraine, Cuba, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The list was based on languages already spoken within the community and current settled populations from those regions.An Ithaca woman who escaped the deadly conflicts of Myanmar in the 1980s wrote the following account of her flight from Burma as a child for the Ithaca-based Immigrant Services Program. It was re-published by the Ithaca Journal on August 18, 2014: http://ithacavoice.wpengine.com/2014/08/ithaca-woman-child-escaped-deadly-burmese-upheaval-1980s/LISTEN HERE
Alex Haley Municipal Pool Mural
This mural was designed and painted in 2015 by Khalil Bey, a local author, actor, social activist, and a formerly incarcerated community member, with assistance from Caleb Thomas, Iago Lopez, Tru Milton, Rashid Brown, N. Cox, David, and J. Stooks. The Alex Haley Municipal Pool is a public pool run by the Greater Ithaca Activity Center (GIAC) across the street. The mural highlights a number of Haley’s works, including: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Mama Flora’s Family, Roots, and Queen: The Story of an American Family. Alex Haley was born only a few blocks away from this mural at 212 Cascadilla Street on August 11, 1921. Haley’s father, Simon Alexander Haley, was completing a master’s degree in agriculture at Cornell University at the time, and Haley's mother, Bertha Palmer Haley, was attending the Ithaca Conservatory of Music (renamed Ithaca College in 1932). The family left Ithaca a few weeks after Haley was born, and he spent the early years of his life in Tennessee.Haley published The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1965 as a “co-author” following the assassination of Malcolm X in February of that year. The book is based on a series of in-depth interviews Haley conducted with Malcolm X between 1963 and 1965. Haley’s 1976 book, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1977 and was the basis for the hugely popular television mini-series Roots, which explored the history of the African-American experience. The series finale had over 100 million viewers, making it the second-most-watched single episode in U.S. television history. The series was nominated for 37 Emmy awards and won 9. Haley also wrote for Playboy, interviewing cultural giants of the 20th century like Miles Davis, Johnny Carson, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King Jr. King’s interview with Haley was the longest interview the civil rights leader granted to any publication in his lifetime.Although Haley only spent six weeks of his early life in Ithaca, he stayed in touch with several Ithacans and contributed to a scholarship fund given in the name of Cornell Black alumni. In 1993, a year after his death, the Alex Haley Memorial Project raised funds to create a memorial pocket park at his birthplace on Cascadilla Street, planting a silver maple there on what would have been his 71st birthday—August 11,1993. The silver maple is a direct descendant of the silver maple which shaded Haley’s grandmother’s porch in Tennessee when she taught him about his African ancestry. A carved granite marker and a handwrought iron bench, comprised of individual iron leaves made by community members with the assistance of local blacksmith Durand Van Doren, were also installed in the park. A New York Historical Marker funded by the Pomeroy Foundation was placed outside his birthplace in August of 2020. LISTEN HERE
Firehouse 5 Mural
The Firehouse 5 Mural at 136 W. State St. was completed in 2017 by four artists, including members of the newly-formed Dripped on the Road traveling artist residency program. Each figure in the mural was designed and completed by a different artist, in order from left to right: Ramiro Davaro, Jenna Garmhausen (formerly Jim Garmhausen), BelowKey, and Denton Burrows.The artists' different depictions of firemen honor the building's history as the Downtown Ithaca Torrent House No. 5, built in 1891. The building served as a volunteer firehouse through the 1970s, and from 1994–2002, it was the location of the Firehouse Theatre. The Firehouse Theatre was a beloved local performance venue, hosting year-round performances in an 85-seat black box auditorium for eight years. Following the closure of the theatre, the building was bought by Ralph Thorpe. Thorpe renovated the building, opening it as the Ithaca Calendar Clock Museum in 2003. On display were 150 original Ithaca calendar clocks from Thorpe's personal collection. The first calendar clock was invented in Ithaca, NY, in 1853 by J. H. Hawes. In 1854, William Atkins and Joseph C. Burritt, also of Ithaca, invented the first perpetual calendar mechanism. A patent was issued to Atkins and Joseph C. Burritt on September 19, 1854, for their improvement on the calendar clock concept. The Ithaca Calendar Clock Co. (ICC) began production that year, and it remained the global leader in calendar clocks for the next 50 years, printing its calendar dials in over fifteen languages. The company went out of business in 1918. Local fans of the original clock company opened the Ithaca Clock Company, Inc. in Newfield, NY, in 1981, making some 500 reproductions over the next few years based on the original ICC designs. Ralph Thorpe died in September of 2009 at the age of 68, and the Ithaca Clock Company Museum was closed and sold off. Some of Thorpe’s clocks can still be found in the archives of The History Center in Tompkins County, which acquired some of his collection. As of 2020, the building is home to the Firehouse Architecture Lab, who collaborated with local artist Jenna Garmhausen (formerly Jim Garmhausen) and the Dripped on the Road artists to create the Firehouse 5 Mural. Video interview of the mural painting process: https://vimeo.com/239088843LISTEN HERE
Women's Nomination Belt Mural
**This mural was demolished in 2021 due to the renovation of the Green St. Parking Garage**The Women’s Nomination Belt Mural, located on the Green Street Parking Garage, was painted by Brandon Lazore of the Onondaga Nation in 2014. In the artist’s words, “It is dedicated to the feminine side of the Haudenosaunee culture, and people can have a better understanding of how important the women in our culture is to our society.” The mural is dedicated to all Haudenosaunee women, with depictions representing many aspects of women’s roles within the Haudenosaunee community. The mural title is inspired by the Nomination Belt, which is a wampum belt bestowed on women as a symbol of their authority to choose, nominate, confirm, and superintend the chiefs of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. It also confirms their right to choose the names of their children, and for children to be born into the clans of their mothers. The belt depicts six human figures, arms extended and joined, with a square between the two central figures representing the council fire. **As of 2020, the painted figures depicted in the Nomination Belt mural have begun to fade, although their significance remains.A silhouette of Sky Woman is also included in the top right corner of the mural. Although versions vary widely from community to community, the Haudenosaunee creation story is essentially the story of the Sky Woman, who fell through a hole in the sky and was caught by birds, who set her down on the back of a turtle. Animals brought mud up to form land on the back of the turtle, forming the earth the Haudenosaunee call Turtle Island. Sky Woman planted many things on Turtle Island and gave birth to twin sons. One twin was drawn to positive creation, the other twin desired destruction and worked to corrupt his brother’s positive creations. It is through the twins' competing efforts that the world was built. The Haudenosaunee believe that the twins’ competing natures for creation and destruction keep the world in harmony and perfect balance. In the mural, Sky Woman is holding roots of the Three Sisters, Corn, Beans, and Squash, the plants that grew from her hand and hair when she fell from the sky. The Three Sisters were, and are, important crops for Haudenosaunee agricultural practices because, when grown together, they have a symbiotic relationship that deters pests, enriches the soil, and provides a balanced diet. The three women in the painting represent three generations of Haudenosaunee women: a grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. Strawberries, also known as "heart berries" to the Haudenosaunee because of their shape, grow at the bottom left of the mural. Strawberries are an important part of the Gaiwiio, which is the “good word” (gospel) of the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, representing blessings and thanksgiving. Lazore included them in this mural for their medicinal significance in connection with the maternal theme “mother’s love is medicine to a child.”The moon, shown in its various phases in the mural, represents fertility. It is included because of the significant role that the cycles of the moon play in a woman’s life. The cycles guide and influence planting, harvesting, hunting, and other aspects of everyday life in Haudenosaunee culture, whose yearly calendar is organized by thirteen moon cycles.Brandon Lazore is a member of the Snipe Clan of the Onondaga Nation. A graduate of Onondaga Community College, he has been painting murals around New York State since the mid-90s. His work “celebrates Haudenosaunee culture and serves as a learning tool for passersby.” LISTEN HERE
Toni Morrison Mural
This mural of celebrated author Toni Morrison was painted by local artist Maryam Adib (Artist handle @thrifted_underwear and @smarf.art) and completed in November of 2019. This mural is on a personal residence, so please be respectful of the grounds. Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931 and passed away in 2019 at the age of 88. She adopted the pen name of Toni Morrison for the publication of her first novel The Bluest Eye in 1970; the professional moniker stuck, although she used her birth name for some of her other writings. Morrison was a prolific author in her lifetime, publishing 11 novels that explored the Black American experience, including Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, and Song of Solomon, which received a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977. She also wrote children’s books, an operetta, and essay collections. In 1993, Morrison became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.Following her graduation from Howard University, Morrison moved to Ithaca in 1954 to complete a Master of Arts degree in American Literature at Cornell University. She completed her Cornell degree in 1955 with a thesis titled “Virginia Woolf’s and William Faulkner’s treatment of the alienated.” Morrison (then Wofford) lived in Cornell’s Cascadilla Hall while she was a student.Morrison returned to Ithaca as an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large for Cornell University from 1997 to 2003. A.D. White Professors-at-Large are an elite group of up to twenty outstanding intellectuals from around the globe, and are considered full members of the Cornell faculty. During their six-year appointments, each Professor-at-Large visits the campus for at least one week in each three-year period. Morrison returned to the Ithaca campus numerous times over the years. “It’s always nice for me to come back,” she said in 2009. “My memories are strong about this place; important. And the two times I have been here for sustained periods have always been extraordinary.”Morrison’s last visit to Cornell before her death was in 2013 for a conversation about literature, politics, and language hosted by the Africana Studies and Research Center and the Institute of German Cultural Studies. Check out https://www.ithacamurals.com/maryamadib.html. LISTEN HERE
West End Mural
The West End Mural was designed and painted by local artist Mary Beth Ihnken in 2004 with assistance from Bill Benson. The mural was a request of the Alternatives Federal Credit Union to brighten up their drive thru lanes, and was partially funded by a Community Arts Partnership grant. The design was developed after three weeks of research at The History Center in Tompkins County. The mural depicts Ithaca’s West End in the early 1900s, highlighting many of the businesses and industries in the community. Ihnken's research revealed that Ithaca's West End was a hub of local industry and transportation; the train station and the old airport (now the Hangar Theatre) were there, and ferries and boats departed from the ports in the Cayuga Lake Inlet, travelling north to the Erie Canal. The mural includes nearly all these modes of transportation: an airplane, a train, automobiles, a horse-drawn carriage, and boats. The mural was used in the Alternatives 2004 Annual Report, garnering the credit union two awards from the 2006 Credit Union National Association Marketing Council’s Marketing & Business Development Conference in Florida (first place National Diamond Award for Annual Reports and Best Use of Art Award). At the top left of the mural is the “Tommy” plane, a nickname for the Thomas-Morse S-4 Scout bi-plane developed for WWI pilots. Thomas-Morse Scouts were designed and built in Ithaca at the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation in the 1910s. The Thomas-Morse factory still stands today on Brindley Street, although it hasn’t produced aircraft for many decades. Tommys were built as WWI pursuit trainers, which most American pilots trained on at bases throughout the U.S. before flying in Europe. Of the approximately 600 planes built before WWI ended, less than 14 of these planes exist today. One surviving Tommy was donated to the Ithaca Aviation Heritage Foundation (IAHF) in 2009 by Dr. William Thibault of Newport Beach, CA. Over the next fourteen years, this Tommy was lovingly and painstakingly restored to authentic factory condition by IAHF volunteers. Tommy was flown for its 100th anniversary on September 29, 2018, at the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, soaring over the same skies it was built under 100 years before. This Tommy is now on permanent loan from IAHF and displayed at The History Center in Tompkins County on the Ithaca Commons. In the mural, the former airport (and one-time storage hangar for the Tommy planes) can be seen sitting alone among the trees near the water’s edge, just below and barely to the right of the Tommy plane. The Ithaca Municipal Airport, as it was known while at its home on the west shore of Cayuga Lake, was built in 1912, with only one hangar and airstrip. It was a prime location for testing many of the planes that were produced here in Ithaca, with the Thomas-Morse Scouts being the most famous of them. In 1934, the airport was expanded as a project of the Civil Works Administration, and thousands of pilots trained there during WWII. However, with commercial aviation increasing, business at this diminutive airport began to decline, especially after Cornell built an airport on the East Hill in 1948. In 1966, the municipal airport closed and became a storage facility for the city, but in the following years, the Center for the Arts at Ithaca (CAI) had set its sights on the building and location as a possible theatre venue. After decades of renovations and fundraising, the facility finally opened as a year-round performance venue in 2010, known as the Hangar Theatre. As the organization states, “the Hangar Theatre can continue to serve as a place where imagination and spirits take flight.”Located at the front left of the mural you can see the red Stanford-Crowell Company building, which was located at 1001 West Seneca St. on the corner of Brindley St. and West Seneca. The building is now known as the Signworks Building, and as of 2020 is home to Worldwide Books. Stanford-Crowell was a sign manufacturer in the 19th century, with customers across the United States, with the distinction of being one of the largest sign novelty factories in the country. The business was originally founded in 1879 by O. R. Stanford. After partnering with W. H. Crowell, the business was incorporated in 1906. The company was known for several of its unique processes which made sign-making a more efficient and profitable undertaking. According to an article in the Ithaca Journal published on August 11, 1926, “G. K. Loveless, superintendent of the plant, is the inventor of a new and distinct process in the making of felt banners and pennants. This is known as the screen process. It consists of putting letters of white lead on felt, rather than sewing on letters of superimposed felt as was formerly done. The layer of white lead is laid on the felt through a fine-screened stencil.” Another process that was unique to Stanford-Crowell was that of waterproofing cardboard. This was achieved by using pure wood pulp, then dipping it in a solution of oil and paint. In 1930, the company purchased the Lock-Fold Paper Box Company, which moved its entire operation to this location in Ithaca.Ithaca was a bustling community in the early twentieth century, and it was correspondingly a hub for transportation of goods and supplies. This was made possible by Ithaca’s access to the Erie Canal through Cayuga Lake, which opened up the potential for revenues from freight and shipping. Ithaca had not just one railroad station, but two in the West End. At 701 West Seneca Street, the railroad station for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (DL&W) was built in 1912. This station served as a stop on a line from Ithaca to Owego. By the late 1930s, however, both the DL&W and the LV passenger trains began to dwindle, as automobiles and the construction of highway systems replaced the practicality of railroads. In 1942, DL&W discontinued passenger service. The station building served as the Ithaca Bus Depot for regional bus traffic from the 1990s on until the bus station relocated to downtown Ithaca in 2019. The train running alongside the Stanford-Crowell building represents the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The Lehigh Valley Railroad (LV) was established in 1847 as the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad, but in 1853, the name was changed to Lehigh Valley Railroad. The original route was from New York City to Buffalo, primarily to haul coal and other wares, but it included passenger services as well. The route was often referred to as the Route of the Black Diamond, in reference to its common cargo of anthracite (locals may be familiar with the Black Diamond hiking trail which also claims its name from our local railroad history). Up two blocks and on the opposite side of the street from the Signworks, at 806 West Buffalo Street, is the Lehigh Valley Railroad Station, built in 1898. The passenger station and freight station were designed by local architect A. B. Wood. This station was a stop for the Black Diamond, Maple Leaf, and Star trains. During the 1920s and 1930s, LV offered specials for Cornell students and parents by providing “observation trains,” which were flatbed cars equipped with bleachers. These would park or move slowly along the side of the lake so the spectators could observe Cornell crew races in the inlet canal. The passenger station was operational until 1961, but due to scheduling changes and budget cuts over the previous decade it largely fell out of service, and the last Black Diamond train left Ithaca on May 11, 1959, with the final passenger train departing two years later. The route is still operational for cargo transport, and the occasional passing train will block traffic in Ithaca’s West End even today.In the mural, the block between the Signworks building and the LV Railroad Station depicts the Dixon and Robinson lumber yard. The large white building in that block is the Lehigh Valley Hotel at 801 W. Buffalo St. The building was also home to the Lehigh Valley House restaurant. The restaurant had opened in 1897 and was operational for over 100 years, closing in 2010. At the time it was the oldest restaurant in town, serving train passengers, hotel guests, and locals for 113 years.In the foreground of the mural, you can see a horse-drawn fire engine about to cross a bridge. It appears to have come from the Sprague Steamer & Hose Company No. 6. The Sprague Steamer & Hose Company was one of several fire companies of the Ithaca Fire Department, first incorporated in 1871, although its existence long preceded that date. In fact, the city’s first fire engine was purchased in 1823. Following the incorporation of the fire department, the Sprague Steamer Company No. 6 was organized on October 1, 1872, and incorporated in December, 1915. It was located in a two-story brick building at 624 West State Street, near Fulton Street.The white building on the corner, next to the Sprague Steamer Company, is the St. John’s Hotel. The business was short-lived and was sold in the early 1900s. It is now the location of the Alternatives Federal Credit Union (in whose parking lot you’re in if you can see the mural!).Although few of the other buildings in the mural include the names of the businesses, it is apparent that the many factories, businesses, and stations that occupied the West End in the early 1900s were prominent features of the city, as they are today. The mural itself is painted on the side of the Bangs Ambulance Operations building, at 626 West Seneca Street. Bangs was also a part of the West End District, and it has been an important part of Ithaca’s history, dating back to 1945. Although the Bangs building is not included in the mural, it is appropriate that the mural is painted on a building of historical significance. The ambulance service began three years after the Bangs Funeral Home was opened by John Bangs in 1942. His wife Rita, a nurse, recognized the need for pre-hospital care in emergency situations, so they began using the hearses from the funeral home to transport patients to the hospital, with Rita administering medical treatment en route. This early intervention proved to be beneficial in patient outcomes, and Bangs Ambulance remains a mainstay of the community over 75 years later.The artist also included the McGraw Clock Tower in the upper right-hand portion of the mural. Cornell University's McGraw Clock Tower, located in the center of the Cornell campus and adjacent to Uris Library, was built in 1891 and named for Jennie McGraw, Ezra Cornell's close family friend. The 173-foot clock tower was originally a library and now houses the Cornell Chimes, a 21-bell set of chimes played daily by chimesmasters. The bells first rang at the Cornell's opening ceremonies on October 7, 1868, and have since played three concerts daily during the school year with a reduced schedule during the summer and semester breaks, making it one of the largest and most frequently played chimes sets in the world. Every morning concert since 1869 has begun with the "Cornell Changes" (affectionately known as the "Jennie McGraw Rag"). The Cornell "Alma Mater" is played at the midday concert, and the "Cornell Evening Song" comes at the end of the evening concert.If you are interested in finding out more about the buildings depicted in this mural, or about any structure that existed in the early 1900s in Ithaca, please go to historyforge.net. There you will find interactive maps of Ithaca dating back to the 1870s.LISTEN HERE
People of Trumansburg
The People of Trumansburg Mural was painted in 2016 by Dan Burgevin and Salima Guireyon on the side of the NAPA Auto Parts building at 1 East Main Street, Trumansburg. In explaining how a mural tells a story and consists of parts of history, Burgevin had this to say: “We all need parts - we build all this stuff. We build our civilization, but it breaks down.” So, it is appropriate that the mural, depicting parts of human history, was painted on the side of a parts store. This particular mural follows a chronological progression, representing aspects of Trumansburg history throughout the generations.Reading the mural from left to right, the first figure on the left is Cornplanter (Gaiänt'wakê), who lived from 1732–1836. He was a Dutch-Seneca War Chief and diplomat who fought in the French & Indian War and the American Revolutionary War on the side of the British. After the Revolutionary War, he was instrumental in negotiating treaties that ceded large tracts of land to the U.S. government. Cornplanter was awarded 1,500 acres of land along the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania in payment for his aid to the U.S. government. This land, known as the Cornplanter Tract, was utilized for the displaced peoples of the Seneca Nation. Inscription at the bottom reads: EXTINCT HEATH HENS & PASSENGER PIDGEONS [sic] SURROUND GAIANTWAKECORNPLANT HOLDS A BROKEN SPEAR POINT AND FLINTJust to the right of Cornplanter is Abner Tremaine (Tremain, Treman), one of the founding fathers of Trumansburg. Abner received a tract of land for his service in the American Revolutionary War, and it is on this parcel that Trumansburg (originally “Tremaine’s Village”) was established and incorporated in 1872. Next to Abner is John McLallen, his brother-in-law. The two of them are carrying a gear for their mill. The topography of the area was ideal for mills, so Abner built two along the creek, a sawmill and a grist mill. According to Burgevin, “These guys were not opposed to having Indians on their land. I’m thinking Abner had already gone through one war, and didn’t want another one. He got awarded a beautiful plot of land in (Military Lot) number 7. He was a Western man; he saw creeks as mill sites. Right down behind here (referring to the mural site) he had a mill.” Inscription at the bottom reads:ABNER TREMAN HAULS A BUSTED MILL WHEEL WITH BROTHER IN LAW JOHN McLALLENTo the right of Abner Tremaine and John McLallen is Lloyd Dorsey rolling a wagon wheel. Dorsey is believed to be the first African-American voter in the Town of Ulysses. Dorsey self-liberated from enslavement in Maryland to freedom in Trumansburg in the early 1840s, where he met and married Nancy M. Hemans, a free Black woman from the Town of Caroline. After their marriage in 1844, Dorsey worked as a carter (a person who transports a load on a cart drawn by a beast of burden), and Nancy was a laundress and domestic. In 1851, Dorsey purchased “an acre of land with appurtenances” from Erastus R. Treman, Abner’s son. The purchase price was $430, and at the time, $250 was the minimum value of property required for a Black man to gain the right to vote. There are no pictures available to indicate what Lloyd Dorsey may have looked like. Muralist Dan Burgevin took license with Dorsey’s image, painting him to look like a beloved local, the late Timmy Brown (1950–2009). Timmy Brown was an avid blues musician and artist, and the neck of a banjo peeking over Dorsey’s shoulder pays homage to Brown’s love of music and local performance. Inscription at the bottom reads:A WILD TURKEY BEHIND LLOYD DORSEY, ESCAPED SLAVE WHO BOUGHT LAND FROM TREMAN’S SONLAND OWNERSHIP CAME WITH VOTING RIGHTS MAKING DORSEY THE 1ST BLACK VOTER IN T. BURGTo the right of Dorsey are Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth, suffragettes and abolitionists. Stanton is best known as a leader of the women’s rights movement, and was one of the lead organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Truth, a former slave, joined Stanton in her fight for women’s rights, and was an outspoken advocate for civil rights, the abolition of slavery, and temperance. In 1851, Truth embarked on a lecture tour, during which she delivered her well-known “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech in Akron, Ohio. Although as much a champion of women’s rights as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, her beliefs differed from those of Stanton, as Stanton argued that she would not support voting rights for Black citizens if women were denied. Truth also departed from the views of Frederick Douglass (another prominent abolitionist of the time), as he believed that previously enslaved Black men should be granted suffrage before women. In both instances, Truth believed that all rights should be granted concurrently. Inscription at the bottom reads:ELIZABETH CADY STANTON HAULS HER SON HENRY WITH FELLOW SUFFRAGETTE/ABOLISTIONIST [sic] SOJOURNER TRUTH. WOMEN WOULD BE DENIED VOTING RIGHTS FOR ANOTHER 80 YEARS AFTER MR. DORSEY RECEIVED HIS.Next in the mural is Walt Whitman. Although there he has no direct connection to Trumansburg, he was referred to by Ezra Pound as “America’s poet...He is America.” Burgevin defends his inclusion in the mural by laughingly stating, “He might have come through Shin Hollow, and stopped to have a beer. It’s fun to speculate.” Inscription at the bottom reads:POET WALT WHITMAN, BENT PEN IN HAND, DROPS SOME LEAVES OF GRASS WHILE A SNIPE EXPLORES THE CHESNUT [sic] TREE TRUNK.The gentleman next to Whitman is a typical bus driver, who seems to have a broken vehicle in need of repair. Note that he is also carrying a whip, which would imply that the bus he was driving was a horsebus, which was popular from approximately 1870 to 1900. Inscription at the bottom reads:THE LAUDEN DEPOT BUS DRIVER CARRYS [sic] A BROKEN HANDLE. HIS PART.To the right of the bus driver is a woman “from Suffolk County.” She is carrying a broken automobile headlamp in one hand and a wrench in the other. Per Burgevin, “she’s going to fix it herself.” Her inclusion in the mural takes the timeline further into the twentieth century, to the time of automobiles, and to the time of women becoming increasingly self-reliant during WWI.Inscription at the bottom reads: A YOUNG DRIVER, WRENCH IN HAND, GOES TO FIND A PART AND FIX HER CAR.Next to the woman stands Durand Van Doren, a local blacksmith. Van Doren moved to Trumansburg in the mid-1980s. His works have become world-renowned, as noted in an Ithaca Times article from July 18, 2020: “In conjunction with other metalworkers, Van Doren lent his artistic style to a bee that he forged for a gate to the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. The gate features ironwork from around the world, and each piece represents an animal mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays.” Van Doren’s work is featured in many local landmarks, most prominently the 14-foot-long gate in front of Cascadilla Gorge, the lanterns in front of Willard Straight Hall, the arched entrance to the Inn at Taughannock, and three entrances to the garden at Cornell’s Mann Library. According to Burgevin, “Van Doren represents the modern era. His old Chevy pickup’s fuel pump went again.” Van Doren also served on the Trumansburg Youth Commission for two decades, including ten years as Youth Commissioner. He actively engaged the youth of the community with blacksmithing arts and community events for over twenty years through his roles in the Youth Commission, Trumansburg Rotary Club, and as a mentor with the Learning Web of Tompkins County. His blacksmith forge can be visited in Mecklenburg, NY, at the ARQbarn on Carman Road. Inscription at the bottom reads:ABOVE A PILEATED FLYS OVER DURAND VAN DORN [sic], ARTISAN EXTRAUDINAIR [sic]CARRYS [sic] A FUEL PUMP FOR HIS TRUSTY OLD CHEVY PICK UPThe final two characters depicted in the mural are local farmers and Cornell University graduates Tony Potenza and John Tamburello “coming out of the parts store,” both holding parts to repair their farming equipment. Tony Potenza was the first organic farmer to be listed in the New York State Registry, and in the 1970s, he was a co-founder of the Finger Lakes Organic Growers (FLO) and one of the founding members of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY). Potenza has focused on growing beans and grains for over 40 years, and his products are used in many local restaurants and bakeries. His early work developing soybeans as a local product resulted in the formation of Ithaca Soy, whose tofu products are made entirely with Potenza Organic Farms soybeans.John Tamburello is a co-owner of Glenhaven Farm in Trumansburg, which grows u-pick blueberries and produces wines and ciders from a variety of fruits. Tamburello graduated from Cornell University at the age of 29, and planted his first blueberry bushes in 1979, which are still producing fruit today. Glenhaven began producing fruit wines from their crops in the early 2000s and are a beloved staple at the Ithaca Farmers Market. Inscription at the bottom reads:JOHN TAMARILLO [sic] & TONY POTENZA ORGANIC FARMERS & PISANS [sic] ARE SURROUNDED BYMONARCH BUTTERFLYS [sic] THANKS FOR PLANTING NON GMO CORNThroughout the mural, the inscriptions at the bottom make additional references to the birds and flora that are depicted in the background, on the ground, or on the tree...RED BREASTED NUTHATCH, BOB WHITES, BROWN CREEPER, FEMALE ORIOLE, CARDINAL FLOWER, RUBY THROATED HUMMINGBIRD, FERAL CAT W/WHIP OR WILL [sic], STARLING, CROW & YELLOW RUMPED WARBLER, BLUEBERRY w BLUEBIRD. It is important to note that Burgevin highlights not only two extinct bird species, the heath hen and the passenger pigeon, but also the chestnut tree. Although the chestnut is not extinct, it came near extinction nearly a century ago when the majority of chestnut trees were destroyed by an invasive blight fungus from Asia. The chestnut played a vital role in American history, as its edible nuts were used to fatten livestock for market, and they were a popular holiday treat for people. Chestnut was also the preferred species of lumber for building log cabins, and later for poles, flooring, and railroad ties, so it is quite befitting that the chestnut tree takes center stage in this mural. LISTEN HERE
