Cayuga Lake and Stewart Park

Stewart Park provides one of the best views of Cayuga Lake available! Enjoy the scenery from one of the park’s swinging benches. Cayuga lake offers natural beauty to the community while also being an extremely important asset to the water infrastructure in the area.

Cayuga Lake is the longest of the 11 finger lakes located in Upstate New York. The lake got its name from the indigenous Cayuga people, translating to “People of the Great Swamp”. The ‘Great Swamp’ refers to the very land that you are standing on! Stewart Park used to be part of a large wetland complex at the southern shore of Cayuga Lake. The lake is very important to the local area since it is used for both recreational and domestic purposes. The lake acts as a source of water for the Lake Source Cooling System used by Cornell University and Ithaca High School, and drinking water for adjacent communities such as Lansing. It is also the effluent release sink for the Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility. Without Cayuga Lake, water infrastructure in Ithaca would look drastically different. From Stewart Park, you can see the LSC Heat Exchange Facility and the Cayuga Heights Wastewater Treatment Facility on the lake’s east shore.

Aside from the beautiful lake-shore view, the park includes a host of other activities for the community such as tennis courts, athletic fields, play structures, a bird sanctuary and a carousel. Stewart Park was originally owned by Cascadilla School before being developed into an amusement park and a film studio. Eventually, the city purchased the property and developed it into the park it is today. The shore along the park used to be a swimming beach; however, siltation from plowing and developing the surrounding area makes the lake unsuitable for swimming. The Ithaca Journal explains that the price we pay from the marsh’s absence is the “large amount of sediment in the water along” and “any attempt to restore sanctioned swimming at Stewart Park will have to be undertaken with the realization that we are battling a natural process”. More information about other forms of recreation can be found at the Friends of Stewart Park website.