Ithaca, United States: Self-Guided Walking Tour

Looking for things to do in Ithaca? Start with Ithaca Commons, the city’s lively pedestrian center, then explore its theatres, historic churches, and Cornell University campus. Neywo offers a free Ithaca audio guide with 13 narrated places, so you can discover the city while each story plays as you reach the corresponding stop.

What to see in Ithaca

Ithaca Commons

Ithaca Commons is a two-block pedestrian mall in the heart of Downtown Ithaca. It brings together shops, restaurants, public art, and community life, making it the city’s cultural and economic center. It is a natural place to pause and take in the activity around you.

Downtown theatres

Ithaca has several venues with distinct connections to live performance and entertainment.

The Kitchen Theatre Company is a professional nonprofit theatre founded in 1991. It is known for bold, intimate, and engaging performances, with a close-up experience rooted in the local community.

The State Theatre of Ithaca is a historic 1,600-seat venue where live entertainment and cinema meet. Its programme has included bands, plays, comedy acts, and silent films. The theatre was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The Lyceum Theatre is a former theatre and movie theatre. Its changing role reflects two different eras of public entertainment: first live theatre, and later film.

For another perspective on the city’s performing-arts scene, Hangar Theatre is a regional nonprofit theatre guided by four aims: to enrich, enlighten, educate, and entertain.

St. James AME Zion Church

St. James AME Zion Church has a history reaching from the early years of Ithaca into the twentieth century. Its modest frame structure stands on a high foundation, while a striking four-story entrance tower gives it a distinctive presence.

The church began in the 1830s. Its original stone meetinghouse, built in 1836, is believed to be Ithaca’s oldest church and one of the oldest in the AME Zion system. The building has been modified many times, but its importance to the community continued. St. James was the place where Alpha Phi Alpha, described in the source as the nation’s first official African American fraternity, was founded, and it hosted early regional meetings of the NAACP. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Ithaca’s churches

The city’s religious buildings add another layer to an Ithaca visit.

The First Unitarian Church of Ithaca is a church building in the city, while Immaculate Conception Church represents Ithaca’s Roman Catholic heritage. St. Catherine’s Greek Orthodox Church forms part of the city’s religious landscape, and Anabel Taylor Hall serves as an interfaith centre at Cornell University, bringing a shared spiritual and community focus to campus.

Cornell University and Goldwin Smith Hall

Cornell University is a private Ivy League research university founded in 1865 by philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson White. From the beginning, it was coeducational and nonsectarian, with the broad ambition of offering instruction across every field of knowledge.

The Ithaca campus covers 745 acres. Its academic structure includes eight undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions, with considerable independence in admissions and curriculum. Cornell is also one of the three private land-grant universities in the United States, and several of its colleges receive support from New York State.

Goldwin Smith Hall is one of the university’s buildings. It is best understood as part of the wider campus setting, where individual buildings belong to Cornell’s larger educational vision.

Bailey Hall

Bailey Hall is the largest auditorium at Cornell University. Its scale is immediately apparent, and the interior can seat up to 1,300 people. It provides a notable architectural and cultural stop while exploring the university campus.

Sciencenter

The Sciencenter is a hands-on science museum built around curiosity and active discovery. It began on February 28, 1983, as a nonprofit educational organisation, growing from a volunteer-run programme that had operated for 15 years in elementary schools in the Ithaca City School District.

The community spirit behind that early programme continued as the museum developed. Today, the Sciencenter is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and belongs to the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Association of Children’s Museums.

Explore more of New York

Ithaca is part of New York, with other city destinations to explore across the state. Nearby pages include Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, New York, and Albany. Ithaca is also part of the wider United States.

Explore Ithaca with Neywo

Neywo has one walking tour and one bus route in Ithaca.

The walking tour, Ithaca: an abolitionist church, downtown theatres and Cornell’s hill, covers 3.95 km in about 111 minutes and includes 11 narrated stops: Kitchen Theatre Company, St. James AME Zion Church, Immaculate Conception Church, St. Catherine’s Greek Orthodox Church, State Theatre, Lyceum Theatre, Ithaca Commons, First Unitarian Church of Ithaca, Anabel Taylor Hall, Cornell University, and Bailey Hall.

The bus route, TCAT 36: From Cornell to the Commons, covers 16.9 km in about 72 minutes and includes five narrated stops: Anabel Taylor Hall, Lyceum Theatre, Immaculate Conception Church, First Unitarian Church of Ithaca, and Ithaca Commons.

Download Neywo and explore with an Ithaca self-guided walking tour or the bus route. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.