Student Profile

Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles: A Historic Structure Report for the Buffalo Street Pumping Station.

In 2007 I completed a historic structure report for a class in building materials conservation. This project also included a hand-drawn set of existing building plans for a measured drawing class. According to the National Park Service, “a historic structure report . . . serves as an important guide for all changes made to a historic property during a project-repair, rehabilitation, or restoration.”

Clinton L. Vivian, a prominent Ithaca architect, designed the Buffalo Street Pumping Station in 1926; it was erected 1929. The Ithaca City Directories list it from 1930-1969 as a voting booth, and it became vacant in 1970 -- until 2005 when the city of Ithaca allowed Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles to use the building as their workshop.

35 years of vacancy and little upkeep by the city have caused considerable deterioration. The recommended treatment for the project is for the continued stabilization of the structure.

Sources: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Ithaca City Directories, Building Plans: City of Ithaca Department of Public Works, History of Ithaca’s Water and Sewer Systems, Environmental Impact Statement: Route 96 Improvements, Interviews by author.

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"In my first year at Cornell I have been busy with core courses in historic preservation. I have also enjoyed expanding my understanding of the preservation field by taking classes outside of the program."

M.A. Historic Preservation Planning 2008

I entered Cornell’s historic preservation planning program after working for five years as the associate director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Institute of Architects. While in Pittsburgh, I worked closely with the design/build community and became interested in how historic preservation influenced neighborhood development and community planning. I was the event planner for Design Pittsburgh 2006, which took place in the 16:62 Design Zone, Pittsburgh’s premier arts and interior design district. As part of this project I worked with a group of volunteer architects to design and construct a 7,000-square-foot exhibit space in a warehouse in the neighborhood. Following Design Pittsburgh, I served on the board of directors of the 16:62 Design Zone until I left Pittsburgh for Ithaca in August 2006.

I graduated in 2000 with a B.A. in American studies from Bard College. In the summer of 1999 I worked in Boston on the PBS series This Far by Faith, which shaped my undergraduate thesis So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth through the Currents of American History. During my senior year I also conducted research on the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, played Balinese gamelan, and held weekly potlucks at my house.

In my first year at Cornell I have been busy with core courses in historic preservation. I have also enjoyed expanding my understanding of the preservation field by taking classes outside of the program. This past semester, I took a course on Gordon Matta-Clark and created a podcast as a contribution to the conference "Gordon Matta-Clark at Cornell." The podcast focuses on the Earth Art show that took place in spring of 1969 and is available at http://www.aap.cornell.edu/podcast/index.cfm.

I am spending the summer of 2007 in San Francisco working for the City Planning Department. As an intern in historic preservation I am researching a potential historic district composed of buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake and fire in the Inner Mission neighborhood.

I am currently president of the Preservation Studies Student Organization and a student member of the Association for Preservation Technology and the American Planning Association.