Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Don’t mind me, I’ve just been plodding away in a lab with mounds of satellite data and computer code. In the meanwhile, I decided to do another keyword bar update. In what could be described as a “math fail”, I somehow managed to go from VI to V in the past two keyword bar entries; apparently 6 is the new 4. I make blunders quite a bit in writing up entries; there’s probably not a single entry of decent length where there isn’t a typo or grammatical error. Most importantly, though, is that the subject material remains as accurate as possible. So, without further ado…

1. ” ‘quill and dagger’ spring 2002″ (7/1/10)

The best bet to finding who was in their Spring ’02 tapping class would be to find the archived version of the Daily Sun papers from that semester and digging through them. Sucks, but that’s the only “legal” way of going about it. The graduation paper from that May would list who graduated from Q&D in 2002, so if you can’t find it in the normal paper, the graduation issue from 2003 (because Spring classes are generally comprised of juniors) might also be useful.

2. “apartments above urban outfitters ithaca” (6/31/10)

Yup, about 68 of them. Kinda funny, the story behind those. If you google the same phrase as the user who came to this site, one of the first articles you come across is Jason Fane’s editorial that Cayuga Green will fail. The article was written while the apartment building was still in the proposal phases, in November of 2005. He said, in short: 1)There is no demand for nicer housing, 2)parking is too far, contributing to 3)no retail will want to locate there and the project will fail. Note that this is coming from the same guy who owns upwards of a thousand units of housing in the Ithaca area, including most of the larger buildings in Collegetown (Jason Fane is the owner of the Ithaca Renting Company). More importantly, note that this is a man who had just renovated and opened an 85-unit apartment building (the Cityview, which opened in 2004) right across the creek from the site. This is a man who had every reason to want the project to fail, because it could take away potential renters.

Not everything went to plan for the Cayuga Green project. The cinema was reduced to a five-screen and Cinemapolis signed in to the project, thus avoiding a movie theater glut in the area. The bus stop helps with retail, but there’s always been a bus stop near the site so that’s a moot point. The Palmer Pharmacy, the Gimme! Coffee shop, and Urban Outfitters, which is considered a huge score for a project in any city let alone Ithaca — were not supposed to happen, according to Jason Fane. Also, Gateway Commons just down the street is a luxury apartment building that was built in 2006/07. That should have failed as well if we follow Fane’s logic, but as far as I know it’s doing just fine. So here’s hoping he feels just a little burned by his own words right now. The condos have yet to start construction due to the recession market, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed they’ll start sometime in the near future.

3.  how to grow ivy frat house (6/30/10)

Speaking as someone who grew up in a house that has a large amount of ivy on and around it (not really as charming as you might think since my family lives in a little ranch house), it really just grows well enough in . The older the leaves the darker they usually are. Trellises of some sort along the wall definitely help it climb but they are not necessary. It’s a low-maitenence plants that in warm, moist conditions (like a summer in the northeast) grows like a weed. A climbing weed.

4. “ithaca record cold” (6/30/2010)

This one has been covered before, but it seems a bit buried within google. The record low in Ithaca is -25 F (-32 C), set twice — Jan. 16 1957, and February 2, 1961. Record cold varies; the lowest July temperature, for instance, was a brisk 38 F, set on July 8, 1963. The last of the coldest colds for a month was set in March 1993 (-17 F, on the 19th and during the epic blizzard of 1993) and the last of the warmest warms was 69 F on December 7, 1998.  Note this is not the same as average warmth; but just google the “northeast regional climate center” for more information.

5. ” cornell cals reputation” (6/29/10)

For most of its (24?) programs, it’s among the top ten in the country. For a few, such as atmospheric science, plant science and entomology, it’s in the top three. That’s from the Gourman Report, which is published by the Princeton Review. So academically it’s well respected.

Within Cornell, CALS tends to be downcast for being a bit more state school and a bit less cosmopolitan than the other colleges. But then, every school has their negative stereotypes (we all know about engineers hiding themselves away or how easy the hotel school is).

6. “oliver s. schaufelberger cause of death”

…*edited*…

…Without meaning disrespect, I never wrote about how a student and three members of her family were killed in a car accident at the beginning of June, but that’s because it was a busy time period and I didn’t want to draw more attention to this blog for being a “list of death”, as one email put it.

EDIT: Someone asked that I take down the links and information that suggested a probable answer to the search query. I am only removing the statement out of politeness. But frankly, just because it’s no longer on this blog doesn’t make it any less plausible.

7. “gates hall 2012” (6-29-2010)

As a starting date maybe. Certainly not for completion. The reason for this is that a 70,000 sq ft building whose design hasn’t even been finalized, let alone approved by the city, would take, arguably, 12 to 18 months minimum (site prep is needed, and it’s a specialized building with sophisticated high tech components, so construction wouldn’t move all that fast). There’s nothing on the city’s planning board agenda that suggests this has come up to the board, and the building would take at least three months to get approvals. It won’t be starting anytime soon, so there’s unlikely to be completion by 2012. A start date during that year, however, is quite possible.