A Llenroc of His Own

So, I suppose this entry is “off-topic” in that it’s outside of my usual body of work, but I could group this with my “Crazy Alumni Profiles” entries.

A few minutes’ northwest of Albany is a little hamlet called Rexford. Located in the suburban town of Clifton Park, Rexford has a fire station, a yacht club, and not a whole lot else. If you’re approaching from the southeast, you’ll notice something else facing the Mohawk River – a wrought-iron gate to a huge-ass mansion. A mansion called Llenroc.

According to the Albany Times Union, it has a helipad, fifteen fireplaces, an indoor swimming pool shaped like a sailboat, and gilded 24-karat gold ceilings. It sits on 12 acres on the Mohawk River, and was built for a price “rumored to be around $32.5 million.” The house was built in 1992 by insurance magnate Albert Lawrence. Lawrence was a “devoted Cornell alum” who modeled his house after Willard Straight Hall, and had the exterior laid with Llenroc stone. Of course, to top it all off, he had the estate christened “Llenroc”, just like the name we’ve given to Ezra’s old estate/current Delta Phi frternity house.

The story of the house is not a happy one, however. Lawrence filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997, after his Schenectady-based company collapsed. He lost his mansion to foreclosure, but he and his wife were still allowed to live in the house until it was sold off, and they ran it as a (massive) bed and breakfast inn.  However, his dirty dealings from his insurance days earned him a 20-year prison sentence in 2000, and he passed away in jail two years later. The house was bought in 2003 by a commodities trader for a mere $1.4 million, who then tried to sell it again four years later for $12.9 million. Unfortunately, the demand for mega-houses in the Albany area is rather slim, especially with the Knolls Atomic Power Lab just across the river in plain view. A hotelier named Mathai Kolath George offered to buy the estate, but he and his son were killed in a plane crash before any deal was finalized. Kolath supposedly planned to try and sell the house for $30 million. A limited liability company (with the dubious name of Power Angels LLC) bought the mansion for $1.9 million in late 2009. The house has remained out of the news since.

I think that funding scholarships would have been better, but to each their own.

 

 

Munier’s Grading Guide

Let’s face it – the majority of students as Cornell are driven by their GPAs. For grad school, for their first job, or whatever their immediate postgraduate endeavor. Sure, they may not mean everything, but GPAs are important enough that many people are dedicated to getting as close to a 4.3 as possible.

However, as anyone who’s been at Cornell for a while can recognize, grades are not distributed evenly, especially between majors. Sure, you could work hard and maybe pull a B+ in a course where the average is a B, but few people would turn down the opportunity to pad their transcript with an easy A. Well, Cornell recognizes this, and has begun to print the median grades for that class, as well as the grades a student has in a course, on their transcript, starting with the class of 2012.

It helps to get an idea where certain median grades lie. For a while, Cornell printed median grades and posted them online. Well, that only fueled the culture of “easy A classes”, so they stopped. Enter Munier Salem ’10′s cleverly-done guide to median grades. Using the fall 2009 median grade report, Munier put together an interactive infographic describing the distribution of grades in a given department (ASTRO, ASIAN, PHYS, and so on).

Now, I could’ve summarized it, but Ivygate already did that. So, I’m going to try a different tack.

I’m a CALS alum. So my interest is in CALS departments (regardless of whether or not they’re shared between schools – I’m looking at you BIO). Using the infographic, I pulled the percentages for different grades in a given CALS department and assigned a value to the grade itself – a 10 is an A+, a 9 is an A, 8 is an A-, and so on. The results in the graphic are actually given in a bar graph, but this method will break it down to just one mean value for simplicity. In example, say EXMPL has four courses – one with an A average, one with an A- and two B’s. (.25 * 9) + (.25 * 8 ) + (.5 * 6) = 7.25, just above a B+ average. Note that this doesn’t take the number of credits a course is worth into account, and in the infographic only a few larger majors are broken down by the course number of the class. Lastly, the quality of students can vary somewhat between majors (the dairy science concentration in Animal Science comes to mind). In conclusion, my grade exercise is more for show than for anything of real value.

AEM: 8.08

ANSC (animal science): 7.83

BEE (bio engineering): 7.57

BIO (standard biology): 7.13

BSOC (bio & society): 7.01

COMM: 8.05

CSS (crop& soil sci): 7.33

DSOC (dev. sociology): 7.66

EAS (earth&atmos sci): 7.34

EDUC (which is being phased out): 7.54

ENTOM (entomology, i.e. bugs): 8.15

FDSC (food sci): 7.70

HORT (horticulture): 8.01

INFO (info sci): 7.72

LA (landscape architecture): 7.89

NS (nutri sci): 8.06

NTRES (natural resources, a.k.a. natty res): 7.88

PLPA (plant pathology): 7.34

Now, this doesn’t take different majors into account, who may take courses from a few different departments. But if we do place any value in this, it’s that it’s good to be an AEM or entomology major, and that you might want to avoid biology & society courses (refuting my own belief that using the word “society” in any course meant it was an easy class).

Cornell’s History, All Drugged Up

So, the latest news tidbit about a Cornell student being caught with $150,000 of heroin has made the news cycles and attracted some undesriable attention toward the university. Which kinda inspired me to look at it in a historical context. It’s what I do.

It’s college. Drugs exist. Some are easier to get a hold of than others. Some are gateway drugs, others are only used by a hardcore group of students. Once in a while, the drug debate comes up in a campus context. The Cornell Daily Sun ran an article about Cornell’s drug culture about two years ago. In the article, it was noted in a 2005 anonymous Gannett survey of students, that of 1,969 respondents, 41% admitted some form of drug or alcohol use in the past 30 days, with 19.8% reporting marijuana use and 4% reporting other drug use.

(with that in mind, considering the university’s undergad pop of about 13, 800, that would suggest 550 users of other drugs, which could include cocaine, LSD and the aforementioned heroin. If [an overly-generous] 50 percent were heroin users, that gives us about 275 students. Which if the street value is correctly reported, than the student was carrying $545 worth of heroin for each user. In conclusion, with that much heroin, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was supplying the entire county).

A similar set of data from 2003 suggests 8 percent of respondents admitted Ritalin/Adderall use without a prescription, and less than 3 percent partook in white lines. Another link on Gannett’s site looks at drug use in 2000, and the rates were largely the same as in following studies (except for hard drugs – those fell a little bit). The article notes that affluent students and students in Greek Life show slightly higher usage rates. Looking at Gannett’s site, if we throw in the more prevalent drugs, tobacco use as defined as at least once in the past 30 days has gone from 21 to 16 percent from fall 2000 to fall 2005. Alcohol use defined as once in the past 30 days has hovered around 75 percent and remained fairly steady through the three studies.

So that’s handy and all, but it’s a smallish sample size compared to the entire student population, and it depends on people answering truthfully. So the numbers could be seen as dubious. Regardless, it’s obvious that students partake in drug use.

***

Now to look at things in a historical context. Drug use was around well before the university. But in 1865 in little Ithaca, the drugs of choice were generally the alcoholic or tobacco variety. The big drugs in the 19th century were alcohol, tobacco, and to a lesser extent opiates and (in later years,) cocaine. Marijuana was seen as a medicinal drug, not a recreational one (that changed after around 1910). Marijuana use at Cornell was minor prior to the 1960s, which is when it caught on with middle-class whites – i.e. most of Cornell’s student population. It is stayed relatively popular since, even after drug laws became tougher in the mid-1980s. As for the opiates, they would see occasional use throughout the next 100+ years, as opium in the late 1800s, morphine and heroin in later years. Heroin received its first notoriety among students when it caught on with the Beatnik culture of the 1950s.  With the increase of purity (strength) of heroin in the 1980s and 1990s, demand, and addiction, grew. Although, going by Gannett’s survey, usage dropped off somewhat at Cornell after 2000. Tobacco saw steady and common use by all branches of the university’s stakeholders since Cornell’s founding, and became so prevalent that in the early 1960s a person could smoke anywhere but inside Sage Chapel. But, needless to say, that’s not the case anymore.

If Cornell follows national trends, it would be safe to say that cocaine use peaked in the early 1980s, with maybe some sporadic crack use after its introduction around 1985. I would be willing to suspect that the “glamor” of powdered coke was preferable to perceived “ghetto” qualities of its freebase equivalent.

Regarding LSD, Cornellians probably first experienced the drug in the early 1960s. Well, willingly anyway. Two Cornell Medical School professors were part of a government project in the 1950s and 1960s to administer LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs on unwilling participants. It was initially hoped by the military that it could be used like a truth serum, and later studies checked it out for therapeutic qualities on mentally-deficient patients. The drug peaked in the late 1960s and saw another slight rise in the late 1990s, but otherwise has seen a general decline.

Now back to our preferred chemical companion – alcohol. The first students of Cornell would’ve usually consumed beer (liquor was as it is now – expensive) down at one of the saloons in town, and there was no standard policy against drinking (Bishop 210). “Give My Regards to Davy” celebrates this aspect of student life (although I should note that highballs are mixed drinks – scotch and soda water). A Cornell Era report from around 1890 suggests that a couple saloons was enough to serve all students, and drunkenness was uncommon. In the 1910s, drinking was common, but seen as a way to celebrate athletic victories, but drunkenness on campus was seen as grounds for dismissal (Bishop 407-408). Prohibition was a major thorn in the side of students and bar owners, but they found ways around the law – Theta Delta Chi had a speakeasy built into their house when it was built in 1926.  A Cornell Sun article from March 4, 1937 reports that drinking at colleges was on the rise after Prohibition, but that public drunkenness was abhorred. The report was “Students…admire the man who can drink like a gentleman” (pg. 3). It seems that a celebrated culture of binge drinking took off around 1980 – the “Animal House” influence, perhaps. Although underage drinking was supposed to be curtailed by the increase of the drinking age from 18 to 21 in December 1985, that has largely proven untrue.

People age, drug preferences change, but students are timeless.

Being an Alum

So, letting go of undergrad is hard. But being an alumni doesn’t mean that everything simply ends.

While visiting a friend up in Vermont this past summer, she mentioned over lunch how she volunteered in the local alumni network there, of meeting with accepted students and going to alumni events and so on. Feeling a bit nostalgic (and realizing that I don’t want grad school to complete dominate my life, although it’s coming real close), I found myself signing up to be a part of the local chapter of CAAAN. CAAAN is the “Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network”, which is divided up into about 300 chapters and 8000 volunteers who take on the opportunity of evaluating applied prospective students.  I figured that I could spare enough time to meet with high schoolers and answer questions they might have about CU, as well as pose a few queries to them for their “evaluation”. To be honest, I remember my meeting being uncomfortable because I was meeting them at the restaurant I worked at in high school, and since they arrived twenty minutes early, I seated them without realizing it was the alum I was supposed to meet with. When they looked at my nametag and asked me if I would be ready to talk about Cornell with them in a few minutes, I promptly excused myself and proceeded to have a royal flip out in the dishroom.  Luckily for me, I told my boss ahead of time about the planned meeting, so she took over the register and let me off a few minutes early.

It’s probably a bit peculiar since if someone asked me what I thought of Cornell while I was there, I would have had some lovely comments worth sharing (though not in front of children). Yet here I am, volunteering to meet with fresh and enthusiastic high schoolers and to try and promote a good image of Cornell. Hopefully.

Being new to the whole thing, I attended a meeting at a local hotel that the local alumni association was doing as an orientation for CAAAN.  The first thing that struck me when I walked into the room was the realization that I was easily the youngest person there. There were about 15 people, almost all of whom were middle-aged (40 and up) professionals, and as I sorta stopped in the doorway, the local chapter head looked at me and said “[Y]ou must be the new guy. I recognize everyone else here.”

What followed was a passing out of “current facts of Cornell” and some admissions and evaluation guidelines. It became quickly apparent that being the young guy had an advantage. They spent several minutes asking me to describe recent changes on campus and how the new financial aid plan was working and random questions about if some aspect of Cornell has changed in the past 10/20/30 years. For once, this blog proved to be useful on a personal level. I also managed to make several of them feel extremely old when describing the new West Campus houses.

It was different. It felt a little strange, but it felt right at the same time. I may be getting older, but I’m still quite young as alumni go.

 

 

The Blessing and Curse of Anonymity: CollegeACB

It seems increasingly common these days to read editorials and columns in the Daily Sun that reference the extremely controversial website CollegeACB (Anonymous Confession Board). That and the alcoholic energy drink Four Loko seem to be the two things that dominate the collegiate news articles this semester (personally, all the news I hear about the drink just makes me more tempted to try it, but I don’t find myself at convenience stores often enough to remember to do so). Reading through the threads on the CollegeACB Cornell page is like a lesson in everything that is “wrong” with people; the website is well-known for its tirades that seem to know no ethical bounds, which include posts that are racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, classist, fetishist and all sorts of other comments that play up the darker side of human character.

I think most people who are on the internet these days have seen something like this before. Before CollegeACB, it was Juicy Campus, before the internet people made use of public spaces; I think there was a stump that used to be near Olin Libe on the Arts Quad in the late 60s and early 70s that was used extensively for spray-painted or paper-posted anonymous messages. Anonymity gives people the guise of security; their comments can hardly be traced to them unless they write something that clearly indicates it was them, or someone sees them typing and posting onto a forum. The sex columnists (the people may change, but the pattern is familiar) go by initials or self-created nicknames so as to avoid the coming up on the radar of potential employers and put up an extra barrier to protect against unwanted attention. Sure, a lot of folks might have a pretty good idea who the writer is, but unless it can be concretely proven, they can feel somewhat secure.

CollegeACB is a site that I can despise, and in some perverse sense, understand at the same time. I think ad hominem attacks on certain individuals is wrong, but censoring those opinions isn’t exactly the right thing to do either, since people value the concept of “personal freedom” so much. It’s a moral gray area to me; I would never do it myself, but I wouldn’t necessarily take away people’s ability to do it for a site that advertises anonymity as its big asset (I am being a bit hypocritical here; I have prevented a couple offensive comments, both of which were personal attacks because I mocked the now-cancelled Ithaca Olive Garden, from being published here on the blog; I initially okayed them, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving them on the blog and deleted them within hours).

Yet, sometimes that anonymity is what it takes for someone to take their guard down and see what they really think. People at Cornell are just as capable of being racist and homophobic and sexist as anyone else, and while those posts are offensive, and some of them are just grotesque attempts at grabbing attention, I can’t help but think there’s at least an ounce of someone’s personal beliefs in there. Objectionable as those posts may be, they demonstrate that Cornell is not a perfect world, and a lot of the tension that gets swept under the rug publicly will rear its ignorant head if given the opportunity.

In a previous post, I compared finding useful information on that site to finding a diamond in a pile of crap. Occasionally, the guise of anonymity can be helpful, and an honest, valuable opinion that would otherwise been kept silent is voiced. But you never know how much truth there is in a post, so the “diamonds” might just turn out to be pebbles of glass. I think a statement and a little research can go a long way in proving a comment right, but that’s not always possible.

I guess the topic really sticks out to me because of Ithacating in Cornell Heights. This blog is written semi-anonymously, in that although I’ve never written my name once, there’s enough information out there that I write as if the posts had by name on the top of each entry…which defeats the purpose of anonymity. My major reasons for continuing it like this are partly because of routine and partly because I prefer what I write to be dissociated from me.

The posts that make up the site are unpleasant, certainly. But I think it’s more a reflection of the people writing anonymously than the existence of the site itself. Maybe people just hold themselves to a low standard. Maybe I’m holding people, myself included, to a low standard because although I don’t condone it, I accept it.  My view is pessimist because I don’t expect people to hold themselves to higher standards, which that website proves every inflammatory day.

I’m too much of a curmudgeon to put a smiley face on this and write how we should behave better. It would be nice, perhaps, but I think it would be unrealistic as well.

Two Years Later

So, times change but this blog is still here. It has been almost exactly two years since this blog was launched (give or take an hour).  I’m not big on statistics for the site, but here’s some numbers:

Number of hits: 90,730 (about 124 hits/day; that’s up from an average of 82 hits/day for the first year alone; so roughly speaking, the second year averaged 166 hits/day)

Monthly stats:

 The highest month, with 10,659 hits, was March 2010. It’s trailed off since then, just as it did the previous year. The drop was so steep because March was when the news about the recent tragedies was most publicized. Which was my cue to take a step back and let things run their course, given the sensitive nature of the events.

Consider the following (and not nearly complete list of) events from the past year:

~The new Physical Sciences building continued its slow but steady construction, nearly complete at this point, while the Hotel School’s 12,000 sq ft addition was completed. The last half of construction also occurred for the Animal Health Diagnostic Center, nearly done as of this writing. Stocking Hall’s reconstruction and renovation was formally announced, and Milstein Hall began to take shape, next to the gaping hole where the mostly underground Johnson Museum addition is currently being constructed. MVR North added a glassy facade while interior work continues to take place, and Gates Hall still floats around in the approved planning phases. According to Cornell’s latest financial report, Gates Hall will be a 70.000 sq ft building, slightly smaller than the 100,000 suggested almost two years ago.

~Over at I.C., the Circle Apartments expansion has been proposed and the indoor athletic facility began to take shape, highly visible even from its collegiate neighbor on East Hill.

~In the city, the Cayuga Green condos still await construction. The ten-story Hotel Ithaca has been approved but has yet to start construction, while the debate over the 1200-bed Collegetown Terrace project off of State Street continues. The Ithaca Gun redevelopment stalled and had to have money reallocated for further remediation, with the hope that work will finally start progressing again in the near future. The Carrowmoor project continued to be trapped in red tape hell, but a Cornell-affiliated proposal for West Hill was announced. It would seem like most of the major private projects stalled this year in light of the recession. However, not all new is bad – a new 5-story apartment building was proposed for 309 Eddy Street and approvals were given for a 4-story 25 -unit expansion of the Coal Yard Apartments off of Maple Avenue. INHS finished its 39-unit Cedar Creek apartment complex and had begun plans for a new project on South Hill.

~In Greek Life, news was not good. Pi Beta Phi and Alpha Delta Phi became fodder for the Ivy League tabloid blog Ivygate, leading to embarassment, and in Alpha Delt’s case, social probation. Kappa Sigma was deactivated for pissing off its national organization, and Pi Kappa Alpha’s rush-gone-wrong brought about their suspension, and later, the university’s announcement that the chapter would be shut down. Let’s see, where there even high notes?…Seal and Serpent hosting Bob Saget is not exactly going to win people over on the Cornell Greek System.

A lot changes within a year. This years seems to be worse than the one prior. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for improvement.

I can remember when I started this blog, I was sitting in my shared bedroom in my apartment, it was pouring on-and-off outside, and feeling bored in Ithaca after settling into my summer jobs. Last year, I wrote the anniversary entry from the Harvey Library of Hampton University, and was rushing to finish because I knew the library would be closing shortly. Now here I am, writing in a cheap subletted apartment in Albany, doing research prior to starting my stint as a grad student at the SUNY for my master’s. Times change, and if anyone had told me this was where my path in life would take me, I would’ve called “bullshit” on that statement. I had general ideas what would happen and what my plans were, but I had no clue this is where I would be two years after starting this blog, and I have no clue where I’ll be one year or two years from now.

However, while the news has changed and a little more has been added to Cornell’s 140+ year history, the message of this blog stays the same. I hope that this blog has helped answer questions that people may have concerning Cornell U and its environs. If this blog makes someone a little more knowledgeable or at least serves as an interesting diversion, then it has done its job.

Expecting A Warm Winter

Global warming completely aside, I think it might be worth noting that Ithaca can expect a warm winter for 2009-2010. This is because we’re in the middle of an El Nino year.

For those living under a rock, El Nino (or as meteorologists know it, the el Nino Southern Oscillation, often reduced to ENSO) is the much publicized periodic change in atmospheric and oceanic conditions highlighted by the shift of the eastern Pacific Ocean water temperatures to much warmer than usual conditions (typically most apparent off the coast of Peru). The effects on the Atlantic will lag somewhat behind the Pacific.

Well, El Nino conditions started to kick in during this past summer, around June. One effect that El Nino years (as they tend to last 12 to 18 months) have is that the Northeast is much warmer than usual during the winter. To illustrate this, I pulled the data for the last few El Nino years (Winter 06-07, Winter 02-03, Winter 97-98, and Winter 94-95, Winter 91-92) from the Northeast Regional Climate Center.

Month/Year Anomaly

Dec 2006 +8.0 F

Jan 2007 +5.6 F

Feb 2007 – 7.1 F

Dec 2002 -2.2 F

Jan 2003 -5.6 F

Feb 2003 -3.0 F

Dec 1997 +2.3 F

Jan 1998 +8.4 F

Feb 1998 +7.8 F

Dec 1994 +4.4 F

Jan 1995 +7.1 F

Feb 1995 -2.7 F

Dec 1991 +2.0 F

Jan 1992 +3.0 F

Feb 1992 +2.0 F

Data from pre-1995 is only available to those with research accounts. Thankfully, my senior thesis research has allowed me this perk. Anyways,  4 of the past 5 El Nino seemed to follow the typical pattern, and 2002-2003 did not. To be perfectly honest, that year is still under study as no one can really seem to explain what happened. A prevailing theory for a while was that it was another osciallation (the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) having an impact on El Nino, but that theory developed a big hole in it after a fairly typical 2006-2007 El Nino year. It takes 20-30 years for the PDO to change phases, so 2006-2007 should have been much the same, but it wasn’t.

Keep in mind this is all relative. Five degrees above normal during the coldest time of the year (late January) means a high of 35 and a low of 19. So don’t get too comfortable.

One Year Later

So, here it stands. It has been almost exactly one year since this blog was launched (add about four hours, and we’re there).  I’m not big on statistics for the site, but here’s some numbers:

Number of hits: 29,800 (about 82 hits/day)

Monthly stats:

 The highest month, with 4,080 hits, was March 2009. It’s trailed off since then, probably due to a number of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with this blog itself.

Consider the following (and not nearly complete list of) events from the past year:

~Weill Hall was formally dedicated, the last West Campus houses opened, Milstein was (formally?) approved, and the Animal Diagnostic Center, Hotel School Addition, and Physical Science building continue their trek to completion (as for the ERL project, I have no idea where that stands with regards to our economic issues). Speaking of which, a new construction freeze was announced, and $2 billion evaporated from the endowment.

~Over at I.C., the Williams Gateway building was completed, and the new indoor fitness facility is now awaiting the first signs of construction. IC and the city also learned that fireworks near the new Park School of Business building weren’t the best idea.

~In the city, the Cayuga Green Apartments were completed, while the condos still await construction. A 9-story hotel was announced for downtown, and the Collegetown moratorium expired, allowing the proposal of a 1200-bed project off of State Street. The Ithaca Gun plant was finally torn down, but not without persisting environmental concerns.

~In Greek Life, Alpha Omicron Pi deactivated its Cornell Chapter. Theta Xi moved around, and Psi Upsilon was reopened after its alumni had concerns with the current membership. Right now, it looks like Alpha Xi Delta might be moving around as well.

A lot changes within a year.

 

I hope that this blog has helped answer questions that people may have concerning Cornell U and its environs. To me, if this blog makes someone a little more knowledgeable or at least an interesting diversion, then it has done its job.

News Tidbits 2/15/09: The Collegetown Zoning Proposal

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/02/13/collegetown-neighborhood-council-details-building-plans

Collegetown Neighborhood Council Details Building Plans

It has been almost a year since consultants visited Collegetown to develop a vision for renewal and nearly six months since an entire book was compiled to lay out the plans that will bring make that vision a reality. Last night, the Collegetown Neighborhood Council devoted its bimonthly meeting to update the status of the Collegetown development plan.

The meeting had approximately 30 attendees. According to Mary Tomlan ’71 (D-3rd Ward), co-chair of the CNC, the meeting had a much larger turnout than usual, attesting to the interest on the development plan.

Tomlan introduced the meeting; she described the “wish to make Collegetown more lively, more diverse and more beautiful” and explained the complexity of the zoning plans. The proposed zoning includes requiring pitched roofs and side porches. Other proposed legislation includes reducing building heights from 40 ft to 35 ft, limiting the number of stories in a building from four to three and reducing the maximum percentage of lot coverage from 35 percent to 30 percent.

Leslie Chatterton, head of historic preservation and neighborhood planner, detailed the plan. She explained that a more diverse and a less cyclical population needed to be encouraged in order to attract more retailers. The plan is intended to significantly increase the density of central Collegetown while maintaining and restoring the residential feel of the outer Collegetown areas. It is also meant to improve the aesthetics of the area through the gradual lowering of buildings heights as one moves from central Collegetown towards the outer areas.

The building plan divides Collegetown into six areas. The center of Collegetown, which extends down to Catherine Street, is given the most attention. Building heights will be increased to 90 ft and there will now be a seven-story limit. It will also be mandatory that the ground floors of these buildings be used for retail, and it will be encouraged to make this central property and its rent the most expensive.

The second area in Collegetown discussed is called the Village Residential area. According to the plan, this area is supposed to adjoin townhouse styled homes with a four-story limit. Chatterton explained that this area is intended to attract graduate students, younger couples and new Cornell faculty, rather than undergraduate students.

The rest of Collegetown will be less dense and is meant to have a residential feel. Building heights will be limited to two-and-a-half stories and the structures of the houses are supposed to remain the same. However, Leslie Chatterton, historic preservation and neighborhood planner, also mentioned that many of these homes are rundown and need to be redeveloped for health and safety reasons.

Jennifer Dotson, a member of the neighborhood council and chair of the common council’s planning committee, spoke about the plan for the new transportation moratorium, which includes parking, busses and regular car traffic. The transportation subcommittee has not yet met, so few details are available.

Some developers at the meeting were unhappy with the plans. John Yengo, commercial manager of the Ithaca Renting Company, said that although he “support[s] growth and planning” he is frustrated by the length of time that the building rules are in limbo.

Sharon Marx, Property Manager of Ithaca Renting Company, agreed.

“It is very frustrating because developers can’t develop. The city has had a year and a half to do this and they still have not made their rules. In the meantime everyone’s hands are tied,” Marx said.

Yango explained that nobody wants to buy property because they are still waiting to see what the new rules will be.

Tessa Rudan ’89, a former Collegetown business owner who has lived in the area since 1967 said she did not trust the research of the hired consultants.

“It seems like they extrapolated a lot of data from all over the place and just applied it to Collegetown,” Rudan said.

Tomlan, however, seemed more optimistic.

“It has been a lot of work and I am hopeful that we will make Collegetown better than ever,” Tomlan said.

***

Well, considering the city and Cornell forked over $75,000 each, and Goody Clancy is a fairly reputable firm, I don’t think Ms. Rudan has to worry so much.

Now, for the sake if discussion, let’s consider the latest zoning guidelines derived from the plan (pulled from the city website [1]).

The zoning shown on the properties is for the maximum number of stories allowed on a proposed structure without having to request a zoning variance (which would give Mary Tomlan a heart attack cause a lot or red tape, possibly killing a project or dragging it out for years). The corresponding heights are given and explained in the red box below. Theoretically, the tallest building in Collegetown under the new guidelines would be either 7 stories OR 92 feet in gross height (this included any mechanical or decorative structures on the rooftop). This is relatively appropriate; commercial structures typically have 14/15 foot floor-to-ceiling heights per floor, and residential floors typically are around 10 feet (a 30-story condo tends to average around 290-320 feet, while a 30-story office building without decorative spires, etc. tends to be around 400-450 feet).

Approximately 24 properties fall into this highest category. Of these, roughly have are already developed into large structures. Since it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to replace a five-story from the 1980s building with a six-story building, those properties are unlikely to be redeveloped in the near future (example properties: Eddygate Park, 402 College Avenue [Starbuck's], Sheldon Court, the east block of 400 College Ave, Collegetown Plaza). Only a few instances of financially sound redevelopment could be proposed under the highest category (possible properties would be 404 College [M&T Bank], the old Kraftee’s building, the new Kraftee’s building, the Green Café [currently under construction on the corner], the liquor store, and perhaps the Korean restaurant). Keep in mind that beyond the fifth floor, a 12-foot setback is required before the building can continue adding floors.

Collegetown “canyon”? For about a 1,000 feet down the road, if you call seven stories a canyon.

The surrounding ~35 properties to this central core have a max height of 5 stories or 68 feet. Keep in mind, this is on the assumption that the building will be mixed use, meaning retail at the bottom (technically, office space counts towards mixed use too, but it seems odd to imagine office buildings in Ctown).

Most of the surrounding zones fall into the other two categories under the current zoning proposal: Village Residential (VR) and Traditional Residential (TR). OS is for open space, which considering the proximity to the gorges, someone would have to be out of their mind to build there anyway. Traditional residential represents single-family detached houses (in other words, no change to the current structures in those areas). These strcutues are expected to have porches and hipped roofs (I think I can hear the modernist architects crying from Rand Hall). Village Residential refers to townhouses, rowhouses, apartment buildings of comparable mass to rowhouses, and very large detached houses.

Notably, under these zoning laws, Cornell’s parking at the corner of Stewart Avenue and Williams Street would have to be VR- rowhouses or a lowrise (apartment style maybe?) dorm.

One more note: parking is largely reduced. The parking garage on Dryden might be expanded, but otherwise, it’s an at your own risk kinda thing. With higher density and more prominent mass transit to a denser living area, the need for cars tends to diminish anyway.

***

So, enough analysis. Here’s my opinion.

Tomlan graduated from Cornell in 1971. And she’s stuck in a Collegtown mindframe from 1971. When it was still largely a student slum of crappy tenement houses (like the ones on Linden, Cook and any other street close to the College/Dryden intersection). Development came. Demand came for luxury housing, and developers obliged.

Do I want to see Collegetown become a series of highrises? No. That was actually proposed in the late 1960s (which I mention elsewhere on this blog). but 90 feet is not going to end the world. It’s not going to make a whole lot of difference in a small, centralized area that’s largely developed anyway. Trying to preserve a bunch of dated, inefficient student slums by limiting developers’ ability to redevelop is not the way to go. I think the proposed plan is largely successful in fulfilling the needs of the area. The argument about mixed-demographics is off base; Cornell Heights, Bryant Park and later Cayuga Heights all developed thanks in part to the fact that many professors and staff prefer to live away from students, especially those with families. One group tends to prefer to get wasted at a bar on a Friday night, the other prefers to go out to a family restaurant and catch a movie. Students and permanent residents are inherently different in terms of schedules and needs from the ambient environment (ex. good schools, variety of shopping). Mixing the two will be like trying to mix oil and water, and it strikes me as a wasted effort. Families are not going to shop in Collegetown, that’s why we have Target at the mall and Wal-Mart down on the flats. The only place to two might mix is Fontana’s.

[1] http://www.ci.ithaca.ny.us/index.asp?Type=B_EV&SEC={36F5C077-C105-4305-8538-321DC13B1180}&DE={6998A392-D898-4BB1-B708-564C98F3F936}

The Issues of Sigma Pi and Panhel

So, I really find this issue to be the rough equivalent of a powderkeg in the Greek System at the present time.

I find it odd that the Ivygate blog [3] would attempt to cover it, though. Judging from the number of “insightful” (“inciteful” might be more fitting) comments, it’s just as much of a powder-keg as I expected it to be.

It is well known that they were booted from the IFC last year for an incident stemming from a Thanksgiving Feast gone horribly wrong that resulted in two freshman requiring life-sustaining medical treatment for alcohol poisoning [1]. Dumb, dumb mistake by Sigma Pi. It cost them their pledge class for 2008 and forced them to undergo an evaluation from their national and their own alumni organization. Looking at the OFSA annual reports, Sigma Pi had 87 members in the spring of 2007 and 64 that fall. They were at that point the largest house in the system.

So, being completely nosy, I talked with the only Sigma Pi brother I know about how the reorganization process is going and the mood was one of “don’t ask about it, it’s been bad enough”. Their national did a review of the house, as did their alumni, removing those that they felt didn’t contribute to the betterment of the house.

Let’s do some quick math. There were 64 in the fall. No pledge class. One can say that close or slightly more than one third of the house in the fall were seniors. So, that would be about 21 or 22. We’ll go with 22, since I don’t have any numbers to officially break it down. That leaves 44 who would still be here this fall.

But, they have 29. Seems the reviews conducted by the local and national were worth the effort in that respect.

So, on the 4th, they were up for review, and the IFC voted to make them associate members (not a full member, but they still have voting privileges). However, their rush will have to be dry. I wish them the best of luck with that.

The debate seems to stem from the feeling that they were let back too soon, and they haven’t had enough time to reform. I can definitely see where that comes from, and I do wonder perhaps if the intentions of those who voted for a dry rush for the Sig Pis wasn’t so much out of showing diligence to safety measures as it was those houses were afraid that Sig Pi would rise up and take away potential pledges. However, I had a project meeting that evening, so the substitute rep for my house went in my place. It’s hard to open a meeting I never went to up for discussion.

***

Meanwhile, the Panhellenic Association (the governing council of sororities), which in this blog I have been a critic of, has reported its lowest registration turnout in recent history, sparking a series of pro-sorority articles in the Sun (though, I suppose that wasn’t as interesting as the back-and-forth caused by a former sorority girl who wrote an article intensely critical of the sorority culture).

My reaction: “Oh, really? No sh*t. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Maybe it’s just a simple statistical anomaly. Whatever the case, with AOPi closed, this spells trouble for the other sorority houses, especially the one that will fall into AOPi’s place as the least respected house. Which most of us have a pretty good who that will be, but to spare myself form the resultant bitching from the sisters who might run across this blog, we’ll leave them unmentioned.

But this won’t just affect that house. If numbers are low, fewer girls will be interested in each house in general. And their numbers will suffer as well.

So, lucky for me, I happen to have friends in both of the co-ed fraternities- Sigma Chi Delta and Alpha Zeta. One of them made this joke to me: “We always have trouble getting guys, but there’s always a lot of girls who come to the house. During rush week, we could open the door at any given time, and there’s always a girl there who says she’s interested in our house.” I do believe off-hand that both of these houses have more females than male members.

In another example, consider the co-ops. Most are co-ed (sans Wari—and Wait Ave. just went coed). Glancing through the list of members on their sites, though, most would appear to have more female members than male members.

My thought is that Panhel is just not doing something right somewhere. Maybe it is a cultural thing; sorority girls are stereotyped as being shallow, bubbly/bitchy, and easy; not exactly good for P.R. Perhaps they just simply don’t draw women like they used to. But I guess they’d better step up the effort, or we’ll be seeing more chapters close or shrink in the near future.

[1] http://cornellsun.com/node/26714
[2] http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2008/12/04/ifc-votes-re-recognize-sigma-pi-fraternity-house-will-be-required-ha
[3]http://www.ivygateblog.com/2008/12/sigma-pi-bros-promise-fewer-near-deaths-are-allowed-to-officially-return-to-campus/