The college began looking for a new home at the same time Syracuse, ninety miles to the east, was engaged in a search to bring a university to the city, having failed to convince Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White to locate Cornell University there rather than in Ithaca. Syracuse resident White pressed that the new university should locate on the hill in Syracuse (the current location of Syracuse University) due to the city's attractive transportation hub, which would ease the recruitment of faculty, students, and other persons of note. However, as a young carpenter working in Syracuse, Cornell had been twice robbed of his wages, and thereafter considered Syracuse a Sodom and Gomorrah, insisting the university be in Ithaca on his large farm on East Hill, overlooking the town and Cayuga Lake.