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Historic Marker Honors an Ithaca Home of Toni Morrison, MA ’55

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Dedicated on what would have been the famed author's 95th birthday, it commemorates a house where she lived as a student

Editor’s note: This story was adapted from a feature in the Cornell Chronicle.

By Kathy Hovis

Ithaca’s north side has been a formative place for American history. Within a few blocks: 212 Cascadilla St. was the birthplace of Roots author Alex Haley and the childhood home of Tuskegee Airman Verdelle Louis Payne; the idea for Alpha Phi Alpha, the nation’s first Black fraternity, was hatched at 421 N. Albany St.; and Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison, MA ’55, lived upstairs at 513 N. Albany St. during the first year of her master’s program.

In mid-February, faculty, staff, students, and community members celebrated Morrison’s 95th birthday by unveiling a new historical marker in front of that Albany Street house and hosting a celebration at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center.

The marker reads: Toni Morrison AKA Chloe Wofford, 1931–2019. M.A. Cornell University 1955. Nobel Prize in Literature, 1993. Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2012. Lived here.

The project was spearheaded by the Toni Morrison Collective, a group of Cornell faculty and librarians dedicated to preserving the author’s legacy on the Hill.

The project was spearheaded by the Toni Morrison Collective, a group of Cornell faculty and librarians dedicated to preserving the author’s legacy on the Hill.

“This marker reminds Ithaca in perpetuity of the space it shares with Toni Morrison,” the collective’s chair, Anne Adams, a professor emerita of Africana studies and comparative literature, said in her remarks.

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“It allows us to conjure Morrison at 513 [N. Albany St.] and wonder whether something of Ithaca might have seeped into her work. For example, for those familiar with her novel Paradise, maybe we could claim that the Calvary Baptist Church that plays such a critical role in that novel might have been inspired by the Calvary Baptist Church right next to her in Ithaca.”

Anne V. Adams, professor emerita in Africana studies and comparative literature and chair of the Toni Morrison Collective, attends the community celebration for Toni Morrison’s 95th birthday. — Alexandra Bayer / Cornell University

Since its inception in 2020, the collective has distributed Morrison’s books throughout Ithaca, held community discussions, hosted academic conferences, and sponsored films, plays, and readings.

“Morrison has been a mainstay of my courses, even though I’m a historian,” says another collective member, Margaret Washington, a professor emerita of history. “I found Toni Morrison to be just as much of a historian as she is a literary genius.”

This marker reminds Ithaca in perpetuity of the space it shares with Toni Morrison. It allows us to conjure Morrison at 513 [N. Albany St.] and wonder whether something of Ithaca might have seeped into her work.
Prof. Anne Adams

AAP alum Kaleb Hunkele, MFA ’18, and his family own the house where the marker stands—but they didn’t know of its connection to Morrison until he was approached by members of the collective.

“I can’t imagine a better house or neighborhood to have raised my son,” says Hunkele.

“He was surrounded by a supportive, engaged community that helped shape him into the thoughtful man he is today. And because of that, it’s easy and fun to imagine how living there could have helped shaped Toni Morrison into the profound literary and cultural force she became.”

Top: The historic marker at Morrison's former home. (Alexandra Bayer / Cornell University)

Published February 23, 2026