On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Bruce Marcham wrote:

> I too grew up in Ithaca (down the road, literally, from Besemer) and never
> heard the term "GSF."

Probably this was a running joke of the Ithaca Journal and/or Ithaca Times
in 1988-90 when I was there.  My Cornell friends at the time took it up
and used it, speaking often of being "lost in the GSF".

Ithaca was remarkable for such a small town in having two daily and two
weekly papers, all thriving.  Even for a college town, it had a lot of
cultural and volunteer stuff going on all the time.  I attributed this to
the lack of broadcast television (due to the topography), and the
extremely high cost of cable TV.

When I announced that I was going to grad school at Cornell, preservation
folks who used to live there would groan.  "Ithaca USED to be beautiful,"
they would say, explaining that many of the things which made it special
or worthwhile had been demolished or ruined in the meantime.  But I went,
and despite the earlier losses, I was very impressed.

Now I am in the same boat as those who advised me back then.  I have not
been back to Ithaca since '90, and I hear that I would be sick at heart to
see the place now.  For example, the east and west ends of downtown, with
many lovely 19th and early 20th century buildings, have reportedly been
leveled.

Worse yet is the fate of Watertown, where I took part in a historical and
architectural survey in 1988-90.  I heard a while back from a longtime
Watertown preservationist who simply gave up and moved away.

                                Larry

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106

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