DeWitt Mall (former Ithaca High School)

Date built: 1912

Architect: William H. Miller

The first Ithaca High School on this site was destroyed by a fire in 1912. Local architect William H. Miller designed the present building in the popular Collegiate Gothic style and it was completed in 1914. The four-story brick and stone building was meant to evoke the style of medieval university buildings in England with projecting towers and crenellations on the roofline. In 1960 Ithaca High School relocated to its present location and the building was used as the DeWitt Junior High School for a decade. The Ithaca City School District considered demolishing the building, but it was sold to local architect William Downing Jr. in 1971. It was adaptively reused to house a mall of shops and restaurants, with offices and residences above and the nationally-known Moosewood Restaurant on the ground floor. The building is now part of the local and National Register DeWitt Park Historic District.

Explore building records and maps for 215 North Cayuga Street throughout the twentieth century on the HistoryForge Ithaca database: https://www.historyforge.net/buildings/17

Image courtesy of The History Center in Tompkins County archival collections, circa 1920: V20-153

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