Ithaca Ny is a small city in upstate Ny, famous for Waterfalls, Gorges, Shortstop Sandwiches, cheap beers at the Chanticleer, and being the Birthplace of FBM!
Here are some random Ithaca facts…
-Ithaca takes its name from the Greek island of Ithaca in Homer’s Odyssey.
Cayuga Lake is named after the Cayuga Indian Nation, one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
-The city’s modern history began in the late 18th Century when Congress awarded Revolutionary War soldiers land grants (in lieu of combat pay) to settle the area. Local deeds are still based on the original “Military Tract,” designated in 1790.
-As a frontier town with questionable morals, Ithaca was briefly known as Sodom.
-Famous Ithacans include: “Roots” author Alex Haley, astronomer Carl Sagan, television writer Rod Serling, and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
-An intrepid boater can cast off from Ithaca and cruise the storied Erie Canal system all the way to NYC and the Atlantic Ocean. Westbound, the canal leads boaters into the Great Lakes, the Mississippi and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico.
-The Moosewood Restaurant, famous for its award-winning vegetarian cookbooks, has been an Ithaca landmark since 1973.
-Ithaca was a film capital from 1913-1920 with numerous silent films produced at Wharton Studios in Stewart Park.
-Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum was a frequent visitor to Ithaca while his wife attended Cornell. At the time, yellow bricks paved local roads.
-Ithaca has its own currency, “Ithaca Hours.” This alternative legal tender is widely used in town and has been featured in over 400 media outlets nationally and abroad.
-The Ithaca Gun Company, whose namesake smokestack remains a local landmark, was established in 1880 and produced some of the world’s finest shotguns.
-The Ice Cream Sundae-Created by a local fountain owner Chester Platt and Unitarian reverend John Scott on April 3, 1892.
-Chicken Nuggets-Invented by Cornell food scientist Bob Baker in the 1950s.
-You can Launch a car going down Buffalo Street at the stewart ave. intersection
Ithaca is also the hometown for Such Legendary BMX characters as Kelly and Kim Baker, Mark “Toast” Johnson, Jeremy “Magilla” Reiss, Myself (steve crandall), Mike Erb, , Jesse “Fisher” Bower, Andrew Forgash, a new crop of screwballs, like Alex Capalongo and Spencer Bayles, and of course The One and Only Mike Tagliavento, who we are partying with this weekend.
See you at East shore!
