A few months ago, this was a quaint and genteel boomtown.
Houses were springing up on every available lot. Elementary classrooms were jammed. People from all over the country were arriving to work at Corning Inc, which, unlike most of New York state's old industrial companies, seemed to have transformed itself into a high-tech corporation with a bright future.
But last week, boom abruptly turned to bust in Corning. The company announced that one of its new businesses had gone sour, forcing it to take a US$5.1 billion -- that's billion with a B -- charge.
It has stopped paying dividends to shareholders for the first time since it went public in 1945. It has brought back a member of the Houghton family, the company's founders, to lend a hand through the tough times.
And worst of all, for the people who live in this town of 11,000, Corning has laid off some 1,000 people here, about an eighth of its local work force.
One of those people laid off is Ellen Baker, a 33-year-old former teacher. Baker returned to her hometown a year and a half ago and found a job at Corning assembling gadgets that amplify the light pulses that zoom along fiber optic lines. Manufacturing equipment to keep fiber optic lines blazing, known as photonics, is the business that suddenly went south.
"All the way through December there was so much work and overtime -- how can it be the exact opposite now?" she asked. "It's hard to understand."
No one is suggesting that Corning's change of fortune is fatal; unlike many other companies that have made big bets on the wired world of telecommunications, it has plenty of money and other lines of business.
But the sudden setback has come as a shock to company executives and to investors (Corning shares plunged to US$14.54 Friday from more than US$113 last September.)
Sharp swings in business have become common at high-speed, high-tech companies and the places they call home, like Silicon Valley in California. But this is the Chemung River Valley, an old-fashioned community of at most 35,000 people 307km northwest of Manhattan.
This is where, in 1868, the first Amory Houghton (pronounced HOE-ton) moved his little glass company. Coal was plentiful, transportation by water was easy, and the city fathers made him a good offer.
This is where, a decade later, what had become Corning Glass Works made the first light bulbs for Thomas Edison. This is where Pyrex custard cups were born, where Steuben crystal decanters were blown, where television tubes were shaped and where Corelle plates were proven to be practically unbreakable. This is where scientists were involved in developing products like silicones and fiberglass. This is where what is today Corning Inc became one of the country's leading corporations.
For about a century, most of the many things Corning Inc made were made here. Its factories lined the Chemung River, and small bars lined Market Street to serve thousands of thirsty glass workers. They lived, for the most part, in the low-lying north side of town; executives and scientists settled along a hill to the south of town.
In 1972 Hurricane Agnes sent floodwaters surging through the valley, knocking out factories and sweeping away homes. Corning Inc basically took over the town until it could be rebuilt, and then began a loving restoration of Market Street.
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