Early in the twentieth century, two Cornell University alumni created a suburb adjacent to the campus of their alma mater in Ithaca, NY, “far above Cayuga’s waters” in the Finger Lakes. Named Cayuga Heights at the suggestion of one of their workmen, a handful of professors turned what would otherwise have been just another faculty enclave in an American college town into an incorporated municipality that has thrived ever since.
Local historian Beatrice Szekely tells this origin story in University Suburb, Founding the Village of Cayuga Heights in Ithaca, New York, which she published in 2024.
Land purchases, road construction, and landscape design take place against a rich backdrop of town-gown relations and politics in the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County.
In addition to historians and urban planners interested in suburbs and local home rule, Szekely wrote the book for anyone who has ever lived in an academic community, where prodigious talent tackles complex issues in its own peculiar way.
Involvement as a trustee and deputy mayor of Cayuga Heights, followed by appointment as its village historian, led her to dig deeply into a veritable treasure trove of resources to research its past.
University Suburb draws heavily on materials in the Rare and Manuscript Collections of the Cornell University Library, information in the award-winning Cayuga Heights History Project, and a myriad of paper and digital texts. Maps and many illustrations bring the story to life.
A graduate of Mount Holyoke College with a master’s degree and a PhD degree from Columbia University, after devoting many years in her professional life to the field of Soviet studies, Szekely worked in the administration of international education at Cornell.
A copy of the book may be ordered from The History Center in Tompkins County.
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