Watermusic, Movies and More in August!

August 4, 2023

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Watermusic, Movies and More in August

The Playground Pollinator Garden is overflowing with beautiful flowers the bees and butterflies love!

WaterMusic & Dancing on the Trail

Saturday August 12 from 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Join FSP and Triphammer Arts for WaterMusic & Dancing on the Trail Saturday, August 12 from 5:30 -7:30pm. This annual fun and quirky celebration of music and dance performed at various locations on the Cayuga Inlet and along the Cayuga Waterfront Trail is for the enjoyment of paddlers and trail users. Join us for an evening of surprises along Ithaca’s lovely Waterfront Trail between Lookout Point (Boatyard Grill), the Ithaca Farmers Market and the Dragon Boat docks.

Like and Share the Facebook event or visit share www.stewartpark.org/watermusic2023.

1. Fly By Night (Old Time) at Dragon Boat Dock

2. Nikolai Ruskin (Violin) at Inlet Overlook

3. Triphammer Arts Dancers at Cass Bird Garden

4. London McDaniel (Jazz) at Rowing Finish Line

5. Djug Django (Swing) at Lookout Point

6. Six Mile Craic (Irish) at Crew Cove Overlook

7. Sow’s Ear at Farmers Market Trailhead

Please note that there is a wedding at the market on the 12th so the Pier will not be a WaterMusic Stage.

8. WaterGrass (Bluegrass) on Floating Stage

RAINDATE: Sunday, Aug 13 @ 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Tompkins Chamber presents Movies in the Park, a family-friendly outdoor movie series in Stewart Park on the lawn between the Picnic Pavilion and the Mayor Stewart Memorial Flagpole Garden. The movie this Friday August 4 is Ghostbusters. For more info visit the Movies In the Park Facebook page.

Celebrate 75 years of the Ithaca Youth Bureau this Saturday, August 5! Learn more about the Anniversary Party.

Join in the fun with ice cream and live music, and be sure to pre-register for swimming and skating.

Stewart Park’s entry landscape just received its summer haircut thanks to the Tompkins County Beautification Program and the volunteer Beautification Brigade. Don’t worry, the 'Walkers Low’ Catmint will come back strong to complement the larger Russian Sage and Switch Grasses at the center of the island. Thanks to Janine Willis, her staff, and all of the volunteers. Friends of Stewart Park greatly appreciates all they do for Stewart Park and the community.

More Park and Trail News

Discover over 75 local fine artists from the finger lakes region in one location at the 31st annual Ithaca Artist Market! Enjoy food, drinks, and jazz music with your art, meet local non-profits, or take a Discover Cayuga Lake boat tour. More info.

Drop by Booth 52 as Friends of Stewart Park and Wharton Studio Museum will be sharing a booth at the event!

Join our friends at Racker for their 75th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday, August 19th from 1pm- 3pm at Stewart Park! Enjoy free ice cream and free carousel rides, as well as field games like Corn Hole and Bocce Ball! The Cayuga Wizards will be performing magic; and there will be free yoga sessions; face painting; rock painting; mobile sensory library and sensory DIY hour; a photo booth; a video memory booth; the playground, and so much more! The park and activities are completely accessible.

Join Wharton Studio Museum, our partner in park revitalization, for Silent Movie Under the Stars Saturday, August 19, 2023!*

This year WSM is thrilled to be showing Beverly of Graustark (1926) starring Marion Davies, one of the great comedic actresses of the silent era.

This popular event -- it's lucky year 13! -- takes place at Taughannock Falls State Park at sundown. With live original music composed and performed by Cloud Chamber Orchestra, featuring Chris White and Peter Dodge. FREE and open to the public! There's a $5. per vehicle parking fee in the park.

Produced in collaboration with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. For more details, visit whartonstudiomuseum.org

Thanks to Presenting Sponsor M&T Bank and to Community Arts Partnership’s “Grants for Arts Program,” with funds from Tompkins County for their support.

*Rain Date is Sunday, August 20, 2023.

Thank you!

You may have noticed a young woman asking questions in the park this July! FSP was lucky to have Yuxin Zou to survey park visitors and take photos this summer (like this lovely pic of a heron on the lagoon). Thank you for your hard work, Yuxin!

Copyright (C) 2023 Friends of Stewart Park, Inc.. All rights reserved.

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What's in store for summer?

June 7, 2023

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What’s in Store for Summer?

On Tuesday, June 6, Summer Ryan-Dinmore @darkbaysfordays captured the

unsettling haze on of smoke in Stewart Park, a result of wildfires in Canada.

It’s incredibly rare for us to say this, but please don’t visit Stewart Park or the Cayuga Waterfront Trail today. You may have seen that Tompkins County Whole Health is alerting the community that local Air Quality has now moved to a hazardous level as defined by the Air Quality Index (AQI) scale, and is discouraging any unnecessary outdoor activity until the air quality returns below hazardous levels. Stay safe, and thank you!

There will be Free Carousel Rides this weekend — June 10 and 11 — thanks to Carousel Sponsor Purity Ice Cream! The carousel will be operates from 11am to 7pm. Thank you Purity Ice Cream!

If you, your business, or organization would like to provide free carousel rides, Visit

www.stewartpark.org/carousel-sponsor to learn more! In 2021 and 2022, Carousel Sponsorships provided between 15,000 and 20,000 free rides!

Pop over to Stewart Park for an hour or two on Tuesday, June 13 between 4:00 pm and 6:30 pm for a Weekday Work Party! We'll be trimming back invasive vegetation and working the garden beds along the Waterfront Trail. Together we'll improve views of the lake and beautify the park for summer!

Wear boots and gloves if you can and bring hand trimming tools (we have some as well). Meet at the DPW garage door of the Wharton Studio Building.

*Rain date June 14

Friends of Stewart Park, the City of Ithaca, Wharton Studio Museum and Historic Ithaca are proud to announce that as of May 5, 3023, Stewart Park is now officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This comes on the heels of the park’s placement on New York’s State Register earlier this spring. A listing on the State and National Registers recognizes the importance of the property to the history of our country and, in the case of Stewart Park, provides the park with added protections that preserve the integrity of park buildings, which were built in the late 1800s; and makes the park eligible for state historic preservation matching grants.

Thanks to Tompkins Weekly for their article about the park’s new designation! You can read the article on their website here!

The last of the guided Spring Bird Walks in Stewart Park will be Saturday, June 17 at 9 am. Join Cayuga Bird Club leaders for a lovely guided Bird Walk in Stewart Park! Dress for the weather, bring your binoculars, and meet at the Cascadilla Boathouse at 9am.

As you may have read in recent newsletters, the Cayuga Waterfront Trail is now a Pollinator Pathway and listed on Pollinator-Pathway.org. Pollinator pathways are public and private pesticide-free corridors with native plants that provide nutrition and habitat for pollinating insects and birds. If you have entered the park during the past couple of weeks, we hope you have enjoyed the colorful park entry landscape now featuring Catmint - Nepata ‘Walkers Low’. While Nepeta is not native, it is deer resistant, a durable survivor, and increasingly popular in our area. You will note that we allow Common Milkweed to flourish in the small, northernmost entry planting island, shown above, and in many other planting beds in Stewart Park and along the trail. It’s the course-leaved perennial that is about to flower. Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) are the required host plants for caterpillars of the monarch butterfly, playing a critical role in the monarch's life cycle as they migrate through Ithaca during the summer months.

More Park and Trail News

We’re Hiring! Come work with us!

Friends of Stewart Park is looking for a Campaign Manager for our upcoming Capital Campaign for the Wharton Studio & Cafe’ project in Stewart Park. The position a part-time hands-on campaign management and fundraising staff position, reporting to WSM’s Executive Director who is also Board President of FSP. Learn More Here.

Happy to report we've recently repaired Elayne's Lending Library in Stewart Park and restocked it with great books! In 2022, FSP received a grant from Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library to get more books that amplify voices of Black and brown youth, as well as youth with disabilities. We also found tons of incredible gently used books at their Book Sale!

Help fill the library! Bring your gently used books to add to Elayne’s Lending Library whenever you head to Stewart Park!