Ithaca | The Common

Sisterland

July 16, 2025 Dispatches

Photo courtesy of author

Ithaca, NY

I want to start by saying that this is not about when I was in a New York city cab and the cabbie and I struck up a concrete jungle duet about where we were from—Gaza, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Ukraine, India…—and what winds, fair or foul, had blown us to the country that’s being made great again by a certain real estate developer. I want to start by saying that in what I have to say there is no New York City or cabbie. That’s not the kind of story this is. Rather, in this story there is a sister—or sisters—and a land—or lands.

I want to start by saying that I propose, simply, a new topos for going “back home,” for the return to Ithaca. I call this topos Sisterland.

Ithaca, Revised

September 17, 2014 Dispatches

By GEOFF KRONIK

East, west, and south, hardwood forests upholster hills named for their compass points, while to the north shines Cayuga, one of the Finger Lakes’ eleven glacial furrows. This is Ithaca, where, as it was when I grew up here forty years ago, the nearest Interstate is still thirty miles away. The aesthetic of those miles is rolling, agricultural, and often hardscrabble, with pro-fracking and “for sale” signs equally likely to appear on roadside barns. To drive to Ithaca is a commitment to the scenic route, metaphorically and visually, because there is neither a fast lane nor an unattractive one.

The Short Summer

June 26, 2013 Dispatches

By AMY MONTICELLO

I knew enough from Facebook to recognize the muddy maroon Jeep with the top off when it ran the long red light at North and Main. I was about to turn right when zoom, straight through with a lead foot. I honked loudly and repeatedly until a freckled arm raised a middle finger through the open roof, so I broke New York’s latest traffic law and thumb-punched a text: “Its me u idiot pull over.”

All posts tagged: Ithaca

Sisterland

Ithaca, Revised

The Short Summer

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