Who coined the phrase Ithaca is gorges?

Answer 1

It is rumored that Howard Cogan did, but the earliest documentation of the phrase was found in an editorial written by Michael Connor.

In the Fall of 1976, I (Bob Vanderbei) was a first year graduate student at Cornell. For Thanksgiving, I drove to Troy NY to spend the holiday weekend with my friends from RPI (my undergraduate college). When I got there, the first question one of my friends asked me was: How do you like Cornell? My response was: "Ithaca is gorgeous!" I did not realize I had made a pun. My friend (I think it was Bill Cocke) laughed. I asked what he was laughing about. He pointed out the pun. When I got back to Ithaca, I used the pun all of the time. In particular, I repeated it often at the college town book store located on the northeast corner of Dryden Rd and College Ave (can't remember the name of the store---it's not there anymore). Around 1979 or 1980, that store started selling "Ithaca is Gorges" t-shirts. I know of no earlier reference and have always assumed that my friend (Bill Cocke) first thought of the pun and that I popularized it on campus. I can't prove this. If anyone has a documentable reference prior to November, 1976, I'd like to hear about it.