I grew up in Ithaca in the 80s, though I had moved away by 1989 (when I was 10 yrs old). Also, I attended an Ivy League school (Brown), and my sister went to Cornell, class of '85, and my dad was a prof there. I'll tell you what I can.
but most importantly, are you writing Heathers fic??? based on your icon and the description, this sounds like Heathersverse! which is one of my favorite movies, so yay.
ummmm... Ithaca is a pretty typical college town. the university influences the culture of the town a lot, so there was an art house cinema and lots of arts and craftsy stuff. there's a big culture of leftover hippies -- just outside of town there were communes, some of which may still exist? but they definitely did in the 80s.
It has "townie" elements who are not really associated with the university -- there's a lot of farming in upstate new york, for example, and also a strong local native american culture. In the late 70s and early 80s, Ithaca (like many places) had a big punk culture, with lots of bands coming to play. my brother in law went to a party at someone's house and The Stooges were there.
but college kids aren't likely to notice much in town that isn't directly related to the university. that's just how college is.
I'm not sure what would be useful to you -- the area around Ithaca is incredibly beautiful. I've lived all over the world, seen all kinds of things, but I still say no place is quite as beautiful as Ithaca. But that's still true today.
ummm... the grocery stores were the IGA and Wegman's, which had recently come to town. People hung out either downtown on the Commons or at Pyramid Mall. Rte 13 was the big strip mall, where you could get KFC and Mister Donut (RIP Mister Donut) and Pizza Hut. oh, Ithaca is also famous for the Moosewood cookbook, which is an early vegetarian cookbook very popular with the crunchy granola crowd (of which there was a lot in Ithaca).
I could tell you a lot more, but I don't know what's useful... names of restaurants? local events? geography? class conflicts? rock shows? weather?
or any specific questions about the ivy league you have, I'll see what I can do. I've seen a LOT of stories about ivy league schools get the culture *incredibly* wrong, so let me know if I can help. a lot of people have the idea that ivy league schools give everyone personal butlers and everyone rides horses to class and we all wear monocles. lol.
I'm afraid I don't know anything about Marshall Scholars.
for what to do with his girlfriend... he might just sneak her into the dorm. he'd have a roommate of course (I'm pretty sure all freshman lived on campus, unless they had a really good excuse), but he might be able to work something out with his roommate. A very simple solution is if his roommate had a girlfriend with an apartment, he'd probably spend all his time at her place -- leaving your MC with a big room and a seldom occupied second bed. I pretty much had this set up when I was in college... I "roomed" with a friend who was de facto living off campus, so I got what was known as a "dingle" -- a double room being used as a single. very convenient for when my boyfriend visited.
How about the gorges? I was there one summer, and people did hang out in the gorge near where we were staying--do they still?
I remember there was a nice farm stand, and a restaurant called Ruloff's, named for a murderer whose unusually large brain was in the university's collection.
Usefulness is a strange concept. For the moment, I'm less writing and more elaborately planning out Veronica and Peter's future in my head. (Technically, going by giftedness and the fact that she's mentioned as a Stanford candidate in canon, I could fudge it and have Veronica go off to Cornell too if it was the most viable option...but I don't think studying to get into an Ivy's going to be the first thing on her mind after, you know, everything that happened to her over the course of the movie.) I also love reading elaborate long explanations of things that may or may not turn out to be relevant. Basically...if it could even loosely work, I'd love to hear it.
And yeah, I know the culture of those schools is a lot more diverse than the stereotype. I'm not sure how true that was in the time period I was writing in, but going by what I can find for connected things it doesn't seem hugely different.
but most importantly, are you writing Heathers fic??? based on your icon and the description, this sounds like Heathersverse! which is one of my favorite movies, so yay.
ummmm... Ithaca is a pretty typical college town. the university influences the culture of the town a lot, so there was an art house cinema and lots of arts and craftsy stuff. there's a big culture of leftover hippies -- just outside of town there were communes, some of which may still exist? but they definitely did in the 80s.
It has "townie" elements who are not really associated with the university -- there's a lot of farming in upstate new york, for example, and also a strong local native american culture. In the late 70s and early 80s, Ithaca (like many places) had a big punk culture, with lots of bands coming to play. my brother in law went to a party at someone's house and The Stooges were there.
but college kids aren't likely to notice much in town that isn't directly related to the university. that's just how college is.
I'm not sure what would be useful to you -- the area around Ithaca is incredibly beautiful. I've lived all over the world, seen all kinds of things, but I still say no place is quite as beautiful as Ithaca. But that's still true today.
ummm... the grocery stores were the IGA and Wegman's, which had recently come to town. People hung out either downtown on the Commons or at Pyramid Mall. Rte 13 was the big strip mall, where you could get KFC and Mister Donut (RIP Mister Donut) and Pizza Hut. oh, Ithaca is also famous for the Moosewood cookbook, which is an early vegetarian cookbook very popular with the crunchy granola crowd (of which there was a lot in Ithaca).
I could tell you a lot more, but I don't know what's useful... names of restaurants? local events? geography? class conflicts? rock shows? weather?
or any specific questions about the ivy league you have, I'll see what I can do. I've seen a LOT of stories about ivy league schools get the culture *incredibly* wrong, so let me know if I can help. a lot of people have the idea that ivy league schools give everyone personal butlers and everyone rides horses to class and we all wear monocles. lol.
I'm afraid I don't know anything about Marshall Scholars.
for what to do with his girlfriend... he might just sneak her into the dorm. he'd have a roommate of course (I'm pretty sure all freshman lived on campus, unless they had a really good excuse), but he might be able to work something out with his roommate. A very simple solution is if his roommate had a girlfriend with an apartment, he'd probably spend all his time at her place -- leaving your MC with a big room and a seldom occupied second bed. I pretty much had this set up when I was in college... I "roomed" with a friend who was de facto living off campus, so I got what was known as a "dingle" -- a double room being used as a single. very convenient for when my boyfriend visited.
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I remember there was a nice farm stand, and a restaurant called Ruloff's, named for a murderer whose unusually large brain was in the university's collection.
Reply
Usefulness is a strange concept. For the moment, I'm less writing and more elaborately planning out Veronica and Peter's future in my head. (Technically, going by giftedness and the fact that she's mentioned as a Stanford candidate in canon, I could fudge it and have Veronica go off to Cornell too if it was the most viable option...but I don't think studying to get into an Ivy's going to be the first thing on her mind after, you know, everything that happened to her over the course of the movie.) I also love reading elaborate long explanations of things that may or may not turn out to be relevant. Basically...if it could even loosely work, I'd love to hear it.
And yeah, I know the culture of those schools is a lot more diverse than the stereotype. I'm not sure how true that was in the time period I was writing in, but going by what I can find for connected things it doesn't seem hugely different.
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