Archive: Opinions

When I first moved to this area I lived in Cortland.  I had a job there, so I decided to rent while I scoped out the area.  I decided to live in Lansing because I loved the community, it was on the right side of Ithaca to commute to Cortland, and close enough to Ithaca to enjoy the city without having to actually live in the 'proverbial ten square miles surrounded by reality'.  I had grown up outside of Boston where my favorite place to go was Harvard Square, then lived in Northern Illinois, where I frequently visited Madison, Wisconsin, and made friends there.  Ithaca reminded me of Cambridge and Madison.  My go-to restaurant in Ithaca quickly became Simeon's.

Simeon's had the Ithaca vibe in spades - a funky layout in one of those old, cool looking Commons corner buildings, good food and service, and those platforms by the windows with tables crammed onto them.  It just felt good just to be there and watch life go by on the Ithaca Commons while having a great meal.  It was a tragedy when Simeon's was forced to close after a truck smashed into the building, killing Lansing Resident Amanda Bush, a bartender at the restaurant, who was pregnant at the time.  An important piece of Ithaca was wrenched away that day.  So it is with some joy that I learned Simeon's is reopening next week.

I believe Simeon's was the first place I took my wife when she was visiting Ithaca before we even became a couple.  It must have been a good choice -- we've been married over 25 years.  We would go there often with visitors from out of town.  We always seemed to be seated on a platform next to a table with man-hating divorcees.  It happened more than once as the not hushed complaints about the offending husband were broadcast to nearby tables.  'Man-hating divorcees' became a thing with us.  It was almost disappointing if we went there and weren't exposed to that particular vitriol.

Well, not really.  Most of our experiences were quite pleasant, and we often brought other people for meals there.

Rebuilding the restaurant has taken a good two years, and its reemergence is much more than just the reopening of a business that was damaged.  It is symbolic of the city's resolve to persevere in the face of adversity.  It also restores a really great restaurant to the community.

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