The brick building owned by Ithaca College that once stood at 929 Danby Road was demolished beginning Jan. 9 after receiving 17 fire code violations. While the physical structure was torn down, the music made within the walls lives on in the 50 years of Suzuki Method students and the Reuning family. 

On June 29, 2023, Ithaca College purchased 929 Danby Road, which became the home of Ithaca Talent Education after the building was purchased by the Reuning family in 1974 — over 100 years after the building was built in 1860. The Reuning family, in partnership with teacher Janis Butler and her husband Frank Butler, bought the space to serve as a place where students could receive music lessons on the violin, viola and cello. 

After the building became property of the college, it had to comply with the college’s fire code regulations. Tim Downs, chief financial officer and vice president of the Division of Finance and Administration at the college, said that during the October 2024 fire inspection, the inspectors found multiple violations that were of high severity.

“To me, the worst thing we could have done was let it sit, deteriorate and continue to get worse,” Downs said. “If we’re not going to remediate it then it’s just going to become an opportunity for potential vandalism or things like that. This was the best path forward for us.” 

The deconstruction of 929 Danby Road

Sanford and Joan Reuning founded Ithaca Talent Education as a way to bring Suzuki teaching to the community and the United States as a whole. Shinichi Suzuki brought the Suzuki method of learning music from Japan to this country in 1964 as did Sanford Reuning to Ithaca College. Sanford and Joan are now 90 years old and still active members of the Ithaca community.  

Carrie Reuning-Hummel, a retired Suzuki teacher and daughter of Sanford and Joan, said the loss of the building has been emotional for her and her family.

“As the oldest child in this family … trying to usher the school to the next iteration and do it well and clear out that building was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life,” Carrie said. “You often hear about when your parents die and you have to clear out their space and how hard that can be. … It really has been like a death.”

The college’s relationship with Ithaca Talent Education

The connection between Ithaca Talent Education and the college goes back decades. The school had a reciprocal relationship with the college, and does to this day. A Master of Music in Suzuki Pedagogy and String Performance program was founded by Sanford and taken over by Carrie. However, the college cut the program in 2021 due to low enrollment.

Carrie said that when the program was cut, many people sent letters pleading for the program to stay. She said that even though her past experience left her upset with the college, this time was different. 

“Working with Tim [Downs] was the best experience,” Carrie said. “He offered [our school] free rent for over a year and he was patient to allow us to find another place to be. When they decided to destroy the building, they checked in to make sure [we gave] permission, even though we didn’t own [the building] anymore. It was just all done in a beautiful way.”

As part of the agreement when the building was sold, the current Ithaca Suzuki Music Education school still has access to the college’s facilities to hold concerts and rehearsals for the next few years.

Sustainable deconstruction 

Scott Doyle, director of Energy Management and Sustainability at the college, said that throughout the deconstruction process, sustainability was at the core of the project. He worked with representatives from Finger Lakes ReUse and Historic Ithaca who walked through the property to analyze what could and should be protected or salvaged. 

“One important thing that [the representatives] said was that while this has an important community history, it’s not a historic property in the traditional sense,” Doyle said. “They also helped us quantify what [materials] made up the building and what could be reused.”

The college hired Contento’s deconstruction and recycling company to do the demolition. Doyle said they chose that company in particular because they aim to divert as many materials from the landfill as possible. Materials like lumber, metal and brick are sorted and then reused. 

“We’ll get the breakdown of how much of [the building] hit the landfill versus how much was diverted,” Doyle said. “And based on what the estimates that ReUse gave me, we’ll have a lot of stuff diverted.”

Despite the current financial deficit that the college is facing, Downs said that purchasing and deconstructing the building did not impact that deficit. 

“There’s a lot of tension on our operating budget but the money we used to buy the property is not part of our operating budget,” Downs said. “So our ‘loss’ did not get any bigger because we bought the house. We have a capital program that is used for real estate. … Our operating budget is what is funded through renewable sources like tuition, room and board … but that is not what paid for the property.”

The legacy of Ithaca Talent Education

Downs said he salvaged the original Ithaca Talent Education sign before the deconstruction to preserve a small piece of the building’s legacy.

“We want to put [the sign] somewhere on campus to commemorate [the building],” Downs said. “We want to be good community members, and how you treat your neighbors and how you work with them is such an important aspect of that.”

On Aug. 24, there was an open house held by the Reuning family and Ithaca Suzuki Music Education in the building to allow community members to say goodbye to the space. Generations of students and families wrote memories on the walls of the building as a way to pay tribute to the time they spent there. Carrie said that even though the program moved to a new location at the South Hill Business Campus, the joy that the music brings has traveled with it. 

“Now, new memories are being formed at the new facility,” Carrie said. “It is a wonderful feeling to walk in there. I can feel the lightness and the joy. So, as hard as this was, it couldn’t have gone better.”