Ithaca Then and Now: Historic Views from the Collection of the Dewitt Historical Society of Tompkins Co, Rephotographed Today

Book by Hesch, Merrill

Merrill Hesch, a graduate of Vassar College in art history, has been active in research and photographic documentation of historic buildings in New York State since 1977. Between 1977 and 1979, she worked on the Schermerhorn Row Block restoration project in lower Manhattan. In Ithaca, she studied city and regional planning at Cornell University. At the time Ithaca Then & Now was published, she worked as a field representative for the New York State Division for Historic Preservation in New York City.

Richard Pieper graduated from Cornell University in 1971 with a degree in geochemistry. He worked as a restoration carpenter in Tompkins County before moving to New York City, where he participated in the extensive documentation effort of the Schermerhorn Row Block. In 1981, Pieper studied architectural conservation at the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome, Italy. At the time the first edition of Ithaca Then & Now was published, he was employed as architectural conservator for Historic Ithaca and Tompkins County, a non-profit preservation organization, and the Department of Planning and Development, City of Ithaca.

Hesch and Pieper are now married and live on the Lower East Side of New York city with twins Sarah and Aidan, 4. Hesch is an administrator of park and historic preservation grants for the five boroughs of New York City for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Pieper is a principal at Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, an architectural firm specializing in historic preservation, and is an adjunct assistant professor in Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Historic Preservation.

Harry Littell, a native of upstate New York, studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, fine arts at Cornell University, and sculpture at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, where he received his MFA in 1988. He has worked as a carpenter since moving to Ithaca in 1991 and maintains a strong interest in art, architecture, photography, and local history. He is currently at home looking after his daughter, Nora.