Old Ithaca Trust Company / Tompkins Trust Building

"The business of the Ithaca Trust Company has long since outgrown the limited accommodations afforded by its quarters in the Savings Bank, and it is announced that the flourishing financial institution has purchased the W. N. Noble building adjoining the Savings bank. The building is to be taken down and replaced by a larger one to suit the needs of the Trust Company. Negotiations are pending with Col. C. H. Blair for the purchase of the lot south of the Noble building, and if it is secured by the Trust Company the new building will cover both lots...."

"The Trust Company To Have A Building," Ithaca Daily Journal, March 1, 1895, 3, accessed September 29, 2024, https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=idj18950301-01.1.3

Ithaca Trust Co 

Tompkins County Clerk's Office, L.H. Van Kirk, County Clerk 

Tompkins County Judge and Surrogate's Office, Bradford Almy, Judge and Surrogate 

Dr. Chauncey P Biggs, Physician and Surgeon 

George S Tarbell, Lawyer, Real Estate and Investments 

Vivian & Gibb (Clinton L Vivian and Arthur N Gibb), Architects 

C W Wurster & Co (William C Wurster and Clarence F Wyckoff), Newspaper Advertising Agents

Ithaca, NY

Ithaca Trust Co 

Cornell Alumni News (weekly), Woodford Patterson, Secretary and Treasurer 

Cornell Daily Sun, F.J. Noyes, Business Manager 

Gibb & Waltz (Arthur N Gibb and Ornan H Waltz), Architects 

George S Tarbell, Lawyer, Real Estate and Investments, Referee in Bankruptcy

Norton Printing Co, Ithaca, NY

Multi-Family Construction: ; 

Roof of Main Structure: Non-combustible; 

Additional Sections: ; 

Porches: ; 

Outbuildings: ; 

Other: Right (N) connection to #114 N Tioga St / Brick or metal cornice, front (E);

Ithaca Trust Co 

Gibb & Waltz (Arthur N Gibb and Ornan H Waltz), Architects 

George S Tarbell, Lawyer, Real Estate and Investments, Referee in Bankruptcy

Norton Printing Co, Ithaca, NY

Ithaca Trust Co 

George S. Tarbell, Lawyer, Real Estate and Investments 

Agricultural Advertising & Research Service, Mary K Fennell Kemper, President; William D McMillan, Vice-President, General Manager

H. A. Manning Co, Schenectady, NY

“The Tompkins County Trust Company, representing a continuation under a new name of two of Ithaca’s long-established banks, will open its doors in the Ithaca Trust Company building, 110 North Tioga Street, on Monday morning, June 3.

The new institution, which will [be] the largest bank hereabouts, is a product of a merger between the Tompkins County National Bank and the Ithaca Trust Company. The merger was finally consummated Wednesday afternoon.”

“Ithaca’s Largest Banking Institution, Tompkins County Trust Company, to Begin Business Monday After Merger of 2 Banks,” Ithaca Journal, May 31, 1935, 3.

Tompkins County Trust Co 

Tompkins County Trust Co, Trust Department 

Agricultural Advertising & Research Service, William S McMillan, President-Manager, Mary F Kemper, Vice-President

H. A. Manning Co, Schenectady, NY

Tompkins County Trust Co

Tompkins County Trust Co, Trust Department

Rural Radio Network Inc (3rd floor)

H. A. Manning Co, Schenectady, NY

“George Atsedes, a restaurant proprietor in Ithaca for 20 years, has purchased the Tompkins Hotel at Aurora and Seneca Sts. from Thomas A. Herson and sold the Club Caret, 106 N. Tioga St., to the Tompkins County Trust Company. …

A.W. Chamberlain, vicepresident [sic] of the Tompkins County Trust Company said the bank has no immediate plans for use of the building next door, once occupied by Tompkins County offices. ‘It will give us adequate room for expansion if and when we decide to enlarge our present quarters,’ he said. ‘The bank was built over 50 years ago, presumably with the idea of caring for a $2 million bank. It now has more than $21 million in deposits. …

Atsedes came to Ithaca in 1929 from Brooklyn. For many years he operated the Soda Spa on Cayuga St. with his brother Peter Atsedes. For several years they ran the College Spa together. Later he operated the Glenwood Hotel for some 3 years. In 1940 he opened the Club Caret. During World War 2, he served 2 years in the U.S. Navy.”

“Club Caret Building Sold to Bank,” Ithaca Journal, August 1, 1949, 3.

"The Tompkins County Trust Company's expansion project, connecting the bank building to the old Tompkins County Clerk's Office, is rapidly taking shape.
Bricklayers are now setting up the masonry link where the Sideboard Restaurant once stood. It will serve as a setback main entrance to an enlarged bank building affording greater facilities to both employes and customers."

"Trust Company Project To Link 2 Buildings," Ithaca Journal, August 26, 1952, 3.

110 N Tioga St
Tompkins County Trust Co

Robert Eastman, Inc.

Tompkins County Trust Co, Trust Department

H. A. Manning Co, Schenectady, NY

108-110 North Tioga St. 
Historic names: Ithaca Trust Company, Tompkins County Trust Company

"Three-story, two-bay, brownstone and buff brick Renaissance Revival-style bank building; street-level facade retains rusticated brownstone below the water table and smooth brownstone facing above; former entrance arch in southern bay has multi-light display window; triple-arched window with non-historic fixed lights in northern bay; first floor marked by stone crown cornice with carved egg-and-dart molding. Upper stories retain elaborate terra cotta window surrounds applied to buff brick fagade with a two-tiered Palladian window configuration in both bays and historic one-over-one sash flanked by paired, two-story, fluted Ionic pilasters marking building comers; second story retains three square-headed windows (Palladian configuration) recessed between Ionic pilasters with classical entablature above; third story retains Palladian windows with Corinthian pilasters, classical entablature, and carved neoclassical fans above; entablature has architrave, plain frieze, acanthus leaf brackets and overhanging comice. Southern two-story addition (1958) at 108 North Tioga Street has a glass and steel atrium facade (ca. l990) and is non-contributing;. Built 1895; additions 1958 and ca .l990. 
Architects: Vivian and Gibb 

Historical note: This building was designed for the Ithaca Trust Company, organized in 1891, and merged with the Tompkins County National Bank in 1935 to form the Tompkins County Trust Company. The firm is presently the Tompkins Trust Company."

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Ithaca Downtown Historic District, December 18, 2004

"The Ithaca architectural firm of Vivian & Gibb designed the impressive three-story stone, terra cotta, and brick headquarters of the Ithaca Trust Company in 1895 to replace an office building on the site. The architects’ chosen mix of materials gives visual interest to the facade. Two-story fluted Ionic pilasters unify the second and third stories. Shorter pilasters also flank the upper-story windows. The roofline is marked by an elaborate entablature with a projecting cornice, ornate brackets, and dentils. Arched windows anchor the first floor, while Palladian windows accent the third story. In the same year that the building was constructed, the Ithaca Trust Company purchased the western (rear) part of the adjoining 108. N. Tioga lot and sometime in the 1910's built a large annex.  (In 1935, the Ithaca Trust Company merged with the Tompkins County National Bank to form the Tompkins County Trust Company.)
   In addition to housing its own tellers and clerks, the bank building at 110 N. Tioga rented out space to other businesses and organizations. The Cornell Daily Sun and Cornell Alumni News managed their publications there in the 1900's and 1910's. The building’s own architect—Arthur N. Gibb and his wife Henrietta, and later Gibb & Waltz partnerships—rented space as well. Lawyers also found a congenial home there, including Sherman Peer and George S. Tarbell, who hung his shingle in the professional offices for about four decades, and the Tompkins County Bar Association Library. In the 1920's and 1930's, agricultural groups, including the Cooperative Grange League Federation Exchange (which later became Agway), the Agricultural Advertising & Research Service, and the New York State Cooperative Official Poultry Breeders, leased offices from the bank.
In 1953, four years after the Tompkins County Trust Companypurchased the old County Clerk’s Office, the two larger buildings became unified into one large bank office. Major renovations in the early 1980s knocked down walls between the two main buildings to create “windows” linking the spaces.
During the Tompkins County bicentennial year celebration in 2017, the county began exploring the idea of purchasing the bank building. The Tompkins Trust Company sold the complex to Tompkins County in 2018, and the county began renovating the building to house the Tompkins Center for History & Culture."

Tompkins Center for History and Culture, https://thehistorycenter.net/TCHC accessed September 28, 2024