Cayuga Heights is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

Tompkins County Tompkins County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 105,740. The county seat is Ithaca. The name is in honor of Daniel D. Tompkins, who served as Governor of New York and Vice Preside ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, United States, and an upscale suburb of

Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...

. The population was 4,114 at the 2020 census. The Village of Cayuga Heights is in the

Town of Ithaca The Town of Ithaca is a former local government areas of Queensland, local government area of Queensland, Australia, located in inner western Brisbane. History The Ithaca Division was first proclaimed in 1879, and originally covered an area t ...

, directly northeast of the City of Ithaca and the main campus of

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. The village is home to many Cornell faculty members, including its

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

History

After the Revolutionary War, much of

Central New York The central region of New York state includes: * Auburn in Cayuga County * Cortland in Cortland County * Oneida in Madison County * Syracuse, the largest city of Central New York, in Onondaga County * Fulton and Oswego in Oswego County ...

was divided into tracts to be given to veterans. Several veterans received lots in what is now Cayuga Heights and started farms. In the early 1800s,

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

started to grow as a small city and inland port. In 1865,

Ezra Cornell Ezra Cornell (; January 11, 1807 – December 9, 1874) was an American businessman, politician, academic, and philanthropist. He was the founder of Western Union and a co-founder of Cornell University. He also served as president of the New York ...

started Cornell University. Students and faculty members initially lived on campus and in Ithaca, but rapid expansion in the late 1800s and early 1900s spurred new development north of the Fall Creek gorge. Two trolley bridges were built across the gorge, and a streetcar connected downtown, Cornell, and the budding residential development north of the gorge. In 1901, local businessmen Charles Newman and Jared Blood bought nearly 1,000 acres of farmland and started the Cayuga Heights Land Company. They hired landscape architect Harold Caparn, who designed the

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn in New York City. The botanical garden occupies in central Brooklyn, close to Mount Prospect Park, Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park, ...

, to design an organic, curving, park-like layout of roads and trees. Cayuga Heights was incorporated as a village in 1915, consisting of a one-half square mile of land from the City of Ithaca line to what is now Upland Road. In 1924, Cayuga Heights Elementary School was built. After World War II, Cayuga Heights continued to expand. Community Corners Shopping Center was built as a small suburban shopping plaza for residents in 1947. In 1952, the village opened its wastewater treatment plant on the shore of

Cayuga Lake Cayuga Lake (, or ) is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and second largest in volume. It is just under long. Its average width is , and i ...

. The village resisted attempts to be annexed by the growing City of Ithaca. Instead, it more than tripled in size in 1954 when it annexed approximately 1.4 square miles of land in the Town of Ithaca, extending from Upland Road to the Town of Lansing border. A large addition was built onto Cayuga Heights Elementary School in the late 1950s. In 1969, the First Congregational Church relocated from downtown Ithaca to a new building on the former site of the Country Club of Ithaca, which had relocated a mile east. The village was a founding member of the Bolton Point Water System when it opened in the mid-1970s. In 1980, Cayuga Heights Elementary School closed due to declining enrollment. It reopened in 1988. In 1995, the last large plot of open land in Cayuga Heights, the former Savage Farm, was developed into a retirement community, Kendal at Ithaca, by the Kendal Corporation. Kendal has since become home to many retired Cornell University faculty members; a local joke for many years was that it had the best physics department in the country, as

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

winner

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Eduard Bethe (; ; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and received the Nobel Prize in Physi ...

, along with Boyce McDaniel,

Dale Corson Dale Raymond Corson (April 5, 1914 – March 31, 2012) was an American physicist and academic administrator who was the eighth president of Cornell University. Early life Born in Pittsburg, Kansas, in 1914, Corson received a B.A. degree f ...

, and many other physicists, were long-time residents. On January 12, 2015, the board of trustees of the Village of Cayuga Heights unanimously adopted a resolution declaring freedom from

domestic violence Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes r ...

to be a fundamental human right.

Government and politics

The main governmental body of the Village of Cayuga Heights is the board of trustees. Meetings are convened by the mayor or by an appointed deputy. The village offices are in Marcham Hall, a stone mansion built by a granddaughter of

Mayors

* Frederick G. Marcham, 1956–1987 * Ronald Anderson, 1988–2002 * Walter Lynn, 2003–2007 * Jim Gilmore, 2008–2012 * Kate Supron, 2012–May 2016 * Linda Woodard, June 2016–present

Fire Department

The Cayuga Heights Fire Department was founded in 1955 and provides fire, rescue, and ALS first-response emergency medical services to the village, areas of the Town of Ithaca, and parts of

. The department is an all-volunteer agency with response times averaging under three minutes. This is due to the department's dedicated volunteers, as well as the innovative and highly successful "bunker program" that allows for 7-8 Firefighter/EMTs to live in a second-floor dormitory and provide duty shifts in exchange for their room in the station. Unlike conventional membership recruiting/acceptance methods, the department recruits and restricts new member acceptance to bi-annual "recruit classes" in tandem with the academic semesters. As a result, many firefighters are Cornell students. The department's current home, the Ronald E. Anderson Fire Station, was built in 2000 and named after the then-mayor. The fire company is technically a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...

non-profit independent of the village, which allows it to sponsor annual fundraising drives.

Police Department

The Cayuga Heights Police Department is a small department consisting of a chief, a sergeant, four full-time officers, a clerk, and several part-time officers and school crossing guards.

Geography

Cayuga Heights is located at (42.466338, -76.488678), on the eastern slope of

. The elevation ranges from 900 feet near Community Corners Shopping Center to 400 feet near the lake. Several streams and steep gorges cut through the village. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the village has a total area of , all of it land. The village is at the south end of

, one of the

Finger Lakes The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located directly south of Lake Ontario in an area called the ''Finger Lakes region'' in New York (state), New York, in the United States. This region straddles th ...

. Cayuga Heights borders, on its north, the Village of Lansing. Two examples of old-growth oak/hickory forests are in the village
Palmer Woods
on the south side of the village near

Cornell Cornell University is a private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson White in 1865. Since ...

campus, an
Renwick Slope
on the far western part of the village by Cayuga Lake. Both are managed by

Cornell Botanic Gardens The Cornell Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located adjacent to the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. The Botanic Gardens proper consist of of botanical gardens and of the F. R. Newman Arboretum. The greater Botanic Garden ...

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 3,273 people, 1,497 households, and 772 families residing in the village. The population density was . There were 1,584 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 85.73%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 1.86%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.06% Native American, 8.95% Asian, 0.09%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 1.19% from other races, and 2.11% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 3.57% of the population. There were 1,497 households, out of which 17.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.5% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 2.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.4% were non-families. 38.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.10, and the average family size was 2.71. In the village, the population was spread out, with 15.3% under the age of 18, 14.1% from 18 to 24, 24.0% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 24.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.9 males. The median income for a household in the village was $74,258, and the median income for a family was $122,746. Males had a median income of $70,893 versus $33,621 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the village was $47,493. About 1.5% of families and 8.7% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including none of those under the age of eighteen or sixty-five or over.

Points of interest

* Sunset Park, a scenic village park bordered by stone arches with panoramic views of

Ithaca College Ithaca College is a private college in Ithaca (town), New York, Ithaca, New York. It was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a Music school, conservatory of music. Ithaca College is known for its media-related programs and entertainment program ...

, the City of Ithaca, West Hill, and

* Kendal at Ithaca * Pleasant Grove Cemetery * RaNic Golf Club (formerly the Country Club of Ithaca, 1900–2020)

Education

The village is in the

Ithaca City School District The Ithaca City School District (ICSD) is a public school district centered in Ithaca, Caroline, Danby, and Enfield. Approximately 600 teachers work in the district, along with 300 other professional staff members, 275 paraprofessionals, ...

.
Text list
/ref> The zoned comprehensive high school is Ithaca High School.

Deer controversy

Cayuga Heights has received national attention for its large population of white-tailed deer, as many as 125 per square mile. Efforts to control the deer population have sparked huge controversy in the village. In 2011, the village Board of Trustees approved a plan to reduce the deer population by sterilizing 20 to 60 does in two years while killing the remaining 160 to 200 deer in the village. Paul Curtis, a Natural Resources Professor at Cornell who has worked with the board of trustees, said "The primary problems that the deer cause to the community are damage to garden plants, deer-vehicle accidents and the potential threat of the spread of foreign diseases.” Opponents of the deer culling program have criticized it as a "war on sweet innocent deer", a "brutal slaughter", and Cayuga Heights as a "constant killing field". Local opposition group CayugaDeer.org has accused the board of trustees' actions as deceptive and dishonest, and sued the village to stop the culling. Few residents agreed to allow the village to cull deer on their property, and in November 2012, the board of trustees abandoned its plan to cull the deer, instead deciding to capture and sterilize does.

Notable people

* A.R. Ammons – poet and

National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...

winner *

– physicist and Nobel Prize winner * Pearl S. Buck – writer, novelist, and Nobel Prize winner *

Vernon and Irene Castle Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers who appeared on Broadway and in silent films in the early 20th century. They are credited with reviving the popularity of modern dancing. Castle was a s ...

– husband-and-wife team who appeared on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

and in

silent films A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, wh ...

in the early 20th century; originated the

Castle Walk Castle Walk is a dance originated and made famous by Vernon and Irene Castle. The moniker was coined from the Castle's signature dance step styling, and their touring stage show of 1913 lead with this as their signature. The Castle Walk became po ...

and popularized the

Foxtrot The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a time ...

Dorothy Cotton Dorothy Cotton (June 9, 1930 – June 10, 2018) was an American civil rights activist, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and a member of the inner circle of one of its main organizations, the Southern Christia ...

– civil rights activist and close associate of

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...

Peter Debye Peter Joseph William Debye ( ; born Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije, ; March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Biography Early life Born in Maastricht, Neth ...

– physicist and Nobel Prize winner *

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of t ...

– physicist and Nobel Prize winner *

Louis Agassiz Fuertes Louis Agassiz Fuertes (February 7, 1874 – August 22, 1927) was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist who set the rigorous and current-day standards for ornithological art and naturalist depiction and is considered one of the most pr ...

–

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

, illustrator, and painter who is considered one of the most prolific American bird artists *

Thomas Gold Thomas Gold (May 22, 1920 – June 22, 2004) was an Austrian-born astrophysicist, who also held British and American citizenship. He was a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Fe ...

– astrophysicist and professor at Cornell University * David Lee – physicist and Nobel Prize winner *

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

– author known for his 1955 novel ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He details his obsession ...

'', which ranked fourth on

Modern Library The Modern Library is an American book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Moder ...

's list of the 100 best novels * Roy H. Park – entrepreneur and media mogul; founder of Park Communications and the Park Foundation *

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...

– astronomer, popularizer of science,

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning author of ''

The Dragons of Eden ''The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence'' is a 1977 book by Carl Sagan, in which the author combines the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and computer science to give a perspective on ho ...

'', and presenter of the

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

-winning TV series ''

Cosmos The cosmos (, ; ) is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order. Usage of the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos is studied in cosmologya broad discipline covering ...

'' *

Kirkpatrick Sale Kirkpatrick Sale (born June 27, 1937) is an American author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism and technology. He has been described as having a "philosophy unified by decentralism" and as bei ...

– author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism, and technology Sale, Kirkpatrick
The Importance of Growing Up Village
''Front Porch Republic'' *

Steven Strogatz Steven Henry Strogatz (; born August 13, 1959) is an American mathematician and author, and the Susan and Barton Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics at Cornell University. He is known for his wor ...

– mathematician and professor at Cornell University

References

External links

*
The History Project of the Village of Cayuga Heights
{{authority control Ithaca, New York 1915 establishments in New York (state) Populated places established in 1915 Villages in Tompkins County, New York Villages in New York (state)