Aurora, NY: A community divided, ready to move on

April 23, 2008
By: Ashley Kalena, NCC News

Aurora was a pleasant village. Then in 2001, Pleasant Rowland who is the owner of the American Girl Doll collection came in and turned the small village on Cayuga Lake upside down. It’s a tight-knit community where the students at Wells College outnumber the less than 400 people living in the village. But after Pleasant Rowland came to town, things changed. These changes weren’t so subtle for some people. The Aurora Coalition was formed by a group of people who weren’t happy with the way the village transformation was happening. Lili MacCormick had lived in the village for 50 years and is opposed Rowland's changes. "I felt that if she had only talked with people, it wouldn’t have been so difficult," MacCormick said.

The Restoration

Rowland is a Wells graduate and a wealthy businesswoman. So, she got together with the college and invested 40 million dollars in the village. She buried powerlines, replaced trees and restored buildings throughout Main Street. Tom Gunderson is the mayor of Aurora and is generally pleased with what Rowland has done for the village. “Aurora really was in a downhill slide – in a state of disrepair and things were starting to look pretty shabby," Gunderson said. The Aurora Inn is a historic building and when Rowland made changes to it, some villagers weren’t happy, but the mayor says…it needed to be done.


The Fargo

John Miller grew up in Aurora and moved back in 1992. Miller said once Rowland made renovations to the local bar, the Fargo - that sent the village over the edge, but unlike some of the other villagers – he won’t stop going there. “My feeling about me coming to the Fargo is, it’s my bar, I don’t care who owns it," Miller said.

Jim Orman is the former owner of the Fargo. “I think the Fargo would have kept going as a major social point, or social gathering place but I think the way everything was handled, some people didn’t care for that," Orman said.

The Future

Seven years later now, tensions are dying down and the community is looking to the future. George Peter is seen as the patriarch of the village and he is just read to see everyone move on. “I hope that we can resolve our differences and come together as a community and act as an example for the larger community," Peter said. MacCormick agrees, "I just hope was can talk in positive ways that will improve things instead of just digging away at the same old sores.”


Gunderson is optomistic about Aurora's future, he said, "I think it’s got a bright future, if we can just keep everybody pulling in the same direction."