Working class

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Iconic Places

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Old Mill and Lanterman Falls. Photo by Keith Roberts — Public Domain

Every town of any size has its iconic places. Sometimes they are places of natural beauty. Sometimes they are places of distinctive architecture. Sometimes the two elements come together. You might call them “iconic” places, because they are places distinguished by some excellence of form, and might even serve as an “icon” representing the place where they are situated. These are often the places that show up on postcards of a city.

I think Youngstown has more than its share of icons. Here are some that come to mind:

  1. Lanterman Falls and the Old Mill (photo above). This is quintessentially Youngstown. Early industry side by side with one of the most beautiful sights in Youngstown’s Mill Creek Park. The mill can be toured and hosts a number of special events. There is a covered bridge, and trails along the gorge offer a number of scenic views.

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    W. Federal Street in the 1960’s with Home Savings in the center of the image. (Source unknown)

  2. Home Savings and Loan Main Office. The lighted top of this building could be seen from many parts of town. A beacon of financial stability for the valley. My last visit there was to clean out my father’s safe deposit box.

    Isaly Dairy Plant

    Photo by Brian Butko. Used by permission with inclusion of the following: Klondikes, Chipped Ham, & Skyscraper Cones: The Story of Isaly’s by Brian Butko. For more information, contact Stackpole Books at (800) 732-3669 or sales@stackpolebooks.com

  3. The U-Haul Building (formerly the Isaly Dairy Plant). Located at the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Mahoning Avenue, when one approached it over the Mahoning Bridge, you got a dramatic view of the art deco design as you anticipated a skyscraper cone.

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    Indian Scout Sculpture. From Butler Institute of American Art Facebook Page

  4. The Indian Scout Bronze Statue in front of the Butler. It represents the extraordinary American art collection inside including the Remington collection.

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    Jones Hall (Public Domain)

  5. Jones Hall. At one time, this was Youngstown State, and may be the place many of us who graduated think of when we think of the campus.

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    Gazebo, Photo by Robert C Trube, (c) 2010

  6. Gazebo at Fellows Riverside Gardens. One of the more recent iconic places but rapidly becoming a favorite place for wedding photos and other gatherings.

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    Stambaugh Auditorium by Nyttend — Own work, Public Domain

  7. Stambaugh Auditorium. This building, gracing Fifth Avenue looks like a classic Greek temple, and has been the site of many concerts, graduations and receptions.

    Mill_Creek_Park_Suspension_Bridge

    By Rg998 — Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0

  8. The Silver Bridge. Another iconic structure in Mill Creek Park, one of Volney Rogers’ “fanciful entrances” to the scenic wonder of the park.

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    St Columba’s Cathedral, by Nyttend — Own Work, Public Domain

  9. St. Columba’s Cathedral. The Catholic cathedral of Youngstown, built in 1958, after a fire destroyed the first cathedral on the same site.

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    Stambaugh Stadium. By Greenstrat — Own Work, Public Domain

  10. Stambaugh Stadium. The home of the Youngstown State football Penguins and the site of many playoff victories. Also known as “The Ice Castle” and visible all over the city.

That’s my list, but I’m sure you can think of others. There are also a number of iconic places that are no more, perhaps the subject of a future post. Steel helped build at least some of these iconic places, but what is impressive is the aesthetic beauty of many, and their enduring presence in the city. If you are visiting the city and want to see it at its best, these are some of the places I would go.

What other “iconic places” would you include? And if you had to pick a “top one” which one would you choose?

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Record Stores

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Photo (c) 2017, Robert C Trube

I saw this scene yesterday at our local Barnes & Noble and it brought back memories of the hours I spent as a teenager bent over bins of LPs at record stores around Youngstown. I find it amazing that vinyl is making a comeback–I think they were devoting more space to vinyl than to CD’s in this store. They said back in the late 1980’s that vinyl was dead. It has apparently experienced a resurrection. Actually for years, I’ve known people who prefer the sound of vinyl, including a number of young listeners. And I’ve picked up some great recordings in used record stores–yes, you can still sometimes find me over those record bins! It appears that CD’s are on the ropes as people either download or stream music they want to listen to digitally.

Perhaps the place to go for records at one time was Record Rendezvous in downtown Youngstown on W. Federal Street. This was the place where you could go and listen to music before you bought it, particularly on 45’s, and some LP’s. They advertised regularly in the Vindicator as I recall, with lists of the top 10 hits. As I understand it, they were part of a chain of Record Rendezvous stores in northeast Ohio. From a Vindicator obituary, I learned there was also a Record Rendezvous in Niles.

I have to admit, I didn’t shop there regularly personally. When I was downtown, I was usually at work at McKelvey’s, later Higbee’s, and they had a decent record department up on the fifth floor during the time I worked there, and I could use my employee discount, which often gave me the best price on new vinyl. It was one of my favorite places to go on break, other than Plaza Donuts in the old Parkade. In high school, my tastes were more to rock and roll–classic groups like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revivial, and Jethro Tull. In college, I discovered jazz and artists like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Dave Brubeck (still one of my favorites!). And because of a friend at Dana School of Music who exposed me to classical music, I began to buy some of the great classical works.

I always loved the album art on LP’s. The little booklets in jewel cases just weren’t the same. I think, for example, that my love for my recording of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony has just as much to do with the beautiful forest scene on the cover with a woman in white in the midst. Remember trying to figure out the significance of the cover of Abbey Road? Was Paul dead? Or the minimalist cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon–a black background, a thin ray of light passing through a prism creating a spectrum of color? There were the surrealist covers by Mati Klarwein on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and Santana’s Abraxas. Great music, great art. This never shows up on “best” lists but Cream’s Disraeli Gears cover strikes me as one of the best psychedelic pieces of art.

Camelot Music and National Record Mart eventually came on the scene at the malls, with much bigger selections than the department stores but whenever we were in K-Mart or Woolco, we’d check out the record section because they usually had the best prices. Camelot became the place to go for me to build my jazz and classical collections as well as pick up some of the latest hits. But I remember  that the YSU bookstore had some great sales, usually on “cutouts” but I found some unusual classical and jazz at some of these, including a great collection of Schubert Symphonies.

I’ve been trying to rack my brain as to whether there was ever a Peaches Records in the Youngstown area. It would have had to be after I left. There was a place called Oasis records for a while in the Boardman Plaza and I loved to go over there while my wife took her mom shopping on visits back home.

Stores just dedicated to records are fewer and farther between these days. Barnes & Noble stores have a growing selection of vinyl as well as other media. I found online three independent stores in the Youngstown area, Geo’s Music in downtown Youngstown, Underdog Records in Hubbard, and the Record Connection in Niles. I’ll have to put these on my Youngstown Bucket List because I still love perusing through the bins of vinyl looking for that special recording.

Did you enjoy hanging out at record shops growing up? Where did you go to get your music?

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — YMCA

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The YMCA on N. Champion in its early years. It still looked much like this when I joined. From Cliff Smith YMCA Postcard Collection, Springfield College Archives and Special Collections, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Before “YMCA” was a hit song, it was a place where many generations of boys in Youngstown learned how to swim and participated in athletic and other activities, alongside volunteers and staff who cared about about their physical and character fitness (the initials stand for Young Men’s Christian Association). It also had low cost rooms that young men starting out could live in. The organization originally was founded in London, England and spread abroad. The idea was to promote a kind of “muscular Christianity” that promoted both physical and spiritual training.

By the time I became a member when I was in fourth grade, the spiritual part was pretty minimal. There was an induction ceremony that I remember that involved lighting candles, and an inspiring message, and we received our Y membership card, which we showed whenever we came into the building, the Central YMCA, located on North Champion Street off of E. Federal, where the Central Y has been located since 1915.

Growing up, I was what my parents called “husky” and my schoolmates called “fat.” Joining the Y was a way for me to get in better shape. I’m not sure it worked, but I gave it a try. I took swim lessons but never really graduated from the beginners. I’d go every Thursday after school and Saturday, but never quite got the hang of it. I still can’t swim. Maybe I’ll try learning in retirement some day!

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Pool, resident rooms, and cafeteria as it looked when I was a Y member. From Cliff Smith YMCA Postcard Collection, Springfield College Archives and Special Collections, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Saturdays were a fun day. You would come in the front entrance into the lobby where there were board games, puzzles, and even a chess board. In the morning, you went with other kids your age through a program that included swimming, exercise, some competitive games coached by the staff, running on the indoor track, and then off to the showers. Then it was time for lunch. They had this great cafeteria, and it was here that I discovered french fries with ketchup on them. After lunch, you could go see a movie, go to a craft room or play board games in the lobby until your parents picked you up.

Going to the Y meant getting my first gym bag and the stuff to go in it. The gym bag was blue vinyl with the Y logo on it. In it went shoes, gym shorts, t-shirt, swim suit, towel, deodorant, and this thing I had never worn before called an athletic supporter (alias jock strap). I had never thought of needing that kind of support before!

The first trip to the locker room was kind of intimidating–all these guys walking around naked taking showers at the same time. And you were supposed to do it too. I guess it was kind of a rite of passage into early adolescence. Thankfully, nothing weird ever happened and pretty soon, you didn’t think twice about it.

A Y membership when I was going up was $20 for the year. That made it accessible for most any family and the Y has always, and still does, offer financial assistance for children or families. The Central YMCA on North Champion is still there. It just finished the first major renovation in 46 years in January. In this video, taken in 2010, you can get a glimpse at what opportunities they offered at that time. It was amazing to see the old lower gym, still looking much as it had, with the indoor track above, as it did in the 1960’s. The pool looked pretty similar as well but everything else was different.

One other difference is that it serves women as well. There is still a YWCA in its historic building on Rayen Avenue. My wife took free swimming lessons there and we had friends in college who lived there because it was so inexpensive. I don’t know much else about it then or now except that it continues to serve women in the Youngstown area.

So much of what I remember in Youngstown is gone. It is a delight to know that these places of my youth are still standing, and still serving the people of Youngstown!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Sides of Town

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Map from the City of Youngstown, Ohio. Used by permission

Almost any time you ask someone who grew up in the city of Youngstown where they were from, they will answer you in terms of which side of town they grew up in. If they grew up in one of the distinctive or “named” neighborhoods of the city, they might add that as well, like Brier Hill, or Brownlee Woods. But in Youngstown you were East Side, West Side, North Side, or South Side.

The fascinating thing to me, living as I do in a much larger city, is that while we were geographically very close–a few miles–to each other and yet often knew little of other sides of town, unless we had relatives who lived there. All of Youngstown would fit into one “side” (yes we use this language where I now live as well) of the city where I live. It takes me longer to drive to my grocery store on the same side of town than it used to take me to drive from the West side to the South side to visit my girl friend (now wife) who lived in Brownlee Woods.

The West side, where I grew up, consists of the areas west of Mill Creek and the Mahoning River northwest of downtown extending to the north, west, and south city limits. The North side is the area north of downtown up to the north city limit between the Mahoning River on the west and Crab Creek on the east. The East side was the area east of Crab Creek, downtown, and the Mahoning River as it flows southeast out of the downtown area, bordered on the north, east and southeast by the city limits. The South side is the area south of downtown and I-680 to the southern city limits (which jut out to the south to incorporate the Pleasant Grove and Brownlee Woods neighborhoods) and is bordered on the west by Mill Creek and on the east by the Mahoning River, except for a portion of the Buckeye Plat east of the river.

Each side of the city included neighborhoods with distinctive names (forgive me if I’ve omitted any) as well as many neighborhoods that had none, including mine on the lower West side north of Mahoning Avenue:

  • West side: Garden District (more recent), Ohio Works, Salt Springs, Schenley, Kirkmere, Rocky Ridge, and Cornersburg.
  • North side: Brier Hill, Crandall Park North, Fifth Avenue, Golf View Acres East and West, Smoky Hollow, and Wick Park.
  • East side: Beachwood, Hazelton, Lansdowne, Lincoln Knolls, McGuffey Heights, and Sharon Line.
  • South side: Boulevard Park, Brownlee Woods, Buckeye, Fosterville, Handel’s, Idora, Indian Village, Lansingville, Lansingville Heights, Newport, Oak Hill, Pleasant Grove.

The sides of the city definitely had their own personality. But I have to admit that I don’t know the different parts of town, especially the East side, well enough to be sure I am accurately characterizing them, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt. The West side, where I grew up was known as the “white West side” (historically due to red-lining) and still is the one predominantly white area of the city. It was definitely home to a number of blue collar families, many who had someone working in the Ohio works or another manufacturing concern. As people prospered they moved further out on the west and southwest areas of the city.

The North side, I always thought of as the rich and cultured area, with the mansions on Fifth Avenue. But it was, and is, home to the vibrant Italian community of Brier Hill. The South side was the largest, most populous part of the city. Both of my grandparents lived there. I remember spacious homes, tree-lined streets in many of the neighborhoods between Glenwood and Market Street. Newport was always where we went to see the best Christmas displays, and it was obvious that those who lived there were successful in business.

As I said, the East side was the area I know the least about. My dad worked for a company along Crab Creek, Raymond Concrete Pile. We used to drive out Hubbard Rd to visit relatives in Hubbard. I recall that it seemed almost rural, with many houses on large lots quite a distance from each other. From what I read, this area has the most undeveloped and agricultural space in the city, as well as McKelvey Lake. I’d love for those who grew up on the East side to tell me more of what your side of town was like.

I suspect for all of us from Youngstown, we have special memories of the side of town on which we grew up. I’d love for you to share them, and what made your area of town special (no bashing other parts of town!).

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Brown Derby

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brown-derbyDid you ever go on a date to the Brown Derby restaurant? It was one of those places where you went for a nice evening out. At one time, you had uniformed waiters, white table clothes, good steaks, decent house wines, a quiet atmosphere, and it wasn’t an absolute budget-breaker.

It’s a place that has special memories for me. That’s where I asked my wife to marry me, back in the spring of 1977, between dinner and dessert. She said “yes” and never was a dessert so good. We had many chances to re-live those memories because it was also one of my parent’s favorite places to which we took them for many birthday and anniversary celebrations. My mom always loved a good steak.

The Brown Derby Restaurant (later Roadhouse) at 2537 South Avenue was not a local family restaurant, but part of a chain started by Gus Girves in Akron in 1941. It is no longer in business but the restaurant chain still operates five restaurants in the Cleveland area. According to Classic Restaurants of Youngstown the restaurant opened in the 1950s on Market Street and later relocated to South Avenue.

We lived in Cleveland in the 1980’s and went to several Brown Derbys, one in North Randall, near where we lived and one in Hudson, a bit more upscale. They had great salad bars that were quite inexpensive at lunch.  We still talk about one visit when our son was just a toddler and we attempted to celebrate our anniversary with him rather than get a sitter. He thoroughly enjoyed his dinner. At his age utensils, unfortunately were optional and by the time we left it looked like we all had been in a food fight!

We moved to Columbus in 1990. Brown Derby used to have restaurants here, and we ate at one once or twice before they closed. Back in Youngstown, the restaurant on South Avenue as well as the one on 422 in Niles became Roadhouses, more casual in style. Eventually we started taking the parents out to one of the steakhouses in Boardman on our visits home.

The restaurant in Niles closed in the fall of 2013. I could not find out when the South Avenue restaurant closed but suspect it was some time earlier. While the Brown Derby was not a Youngstown original, in the 1960’s and ’70’s, it was a great, affordable place for a nice dinner out on a date night and a great place for family gatherings. It’s another one of those places that seemed to weave in and out of the fabric of our lives.

What are your memories of the Brown Derby?

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Occupying Ourselves

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An erector set like mine. Photo from Eli Whitney Museum — Erector Sets and Manuals

In the area where I live, we noticed that the minivan was the car of choice when our son was growing up. Parents were defined as “he or she who pays and drives.” We were kind of alarmed, actually, at the expectation that after school you were supposed to take your kid to leagues, lessons, “enrichment” opportunities and more. It seemed kind of weird to us, but we thought it might be weirder if our son didn’t get to do anything, and so we did a few things like Scouts, football in middle school, or later, voice lessons in high school.

It was weird because both my wife and I remember just keeping yourself occupied after school. In good weather you played pickup baseball, basketball or football, at least if you were a boy. You skated or sledded or built snow forts when it snowed. And in those seasons where it was chilly and damp, you found things to do indoors.

Girls might do sewing projects or weaving projects, drawing, painting, or crafts (gender roles were pretty well defined back then–what boys could do and what girls could do). I would sometimes fiddle around at my dad’s workbench cutting out wood into rubber band pistols or making contraptions out of scrap wood. We had various “kits” — electrical kits where we could wire up different circuits and learn about switches and electricity. There were crystal radio kits with a crystal tuner and and a long string of wire that served as an antenna and an earphone where you could listen to radio stations. It was so cool when it actually worked.

We had an Erector set that afforded hours of alternating frustration and pleasure. The set had a little electric motor that would drive various gear or pulley arrangements. There were instructions for building a draw bridge that would raise and lower, an amusement park ride like the Rockets at Idora Park that would turn, and various moving vehicles. The frustration was usually in tightening all those little nuts and bolts that held the various contraptions together. The sets even furnished screwdrivers and tiny wrenches. One time I decided to experiment and see what happened when you put both screwdrivers in an electrical socket. I got zapped, sparks flew, and I blew out the main fuses in our fuse box. Needless to say, I didn’t try that again.

Later on, it was building HO slot car racetracks in my basement. It was incredible the layout I built in a 6 foot by 2 foot space along one wall of our basement-spirals, loops, multiple levels, bridges and tunnels. I learned to make the cars run fast by cleaning oxidation, playing with gearing, swapping tires. I invited my buddies to join me. If I wasn’t racing slot cars, I was building models of my favorite hot rods.

We occupied ourselves by doing, by making, by puttering. We learned how things worked–or didn’t. We worked out compromises in pick up games, learned to take care of ourselves. I’m not sure when and how this different model of leagues, lessons, and other parent-organized activities became the dominant model. I have no idea which way is better. All I can say is that I never felt deprived, and learned a lot about the ways people and things worked. It was a great way to grow up.

Was it like this for you?

 

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Chicken Paprikash

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The cold of winter means this is a great time for comfort food–dishes that warm and fill you and provide energy for cleaning off the walks and braving the snows of northeast Ohio. Glancing through volume one of Recipes of Youngstown reminded me of one of the standby comfort dishes in many of our households (and school cafeterias staffed by Youngstown mommas)–chicken paprikash.

We need to thank the Hungarian immigrants to Youngstown for this dish (paprikás csirke or csirkepaprikás in Hungarian), whose name comes obviously from the chicken that is used and the sweet (not hot!) Hungarian paprika used in the recipe. At the end, I will point you to some recipes (I don’t have one of my own) and a really cool video I found on making this dish.

It starts with melted shortening in which you brown, not burn chopped onions (some also like to add garlic, or celery and carrots, green peppers, and chopped tomatoes). After browning you add in the paprika and combine all this, then put in your chicken pieces, making sure they are coated with the mixture and salted and seasoned to taste. Then you add water (some recipes add chicken broth, which may add some flavor) so the mixture doesn’t stick to your pot, and to create the “stock base” for your sour cream gravy which you will make later.  Cook the chicken thoroughly on medium low heat for an hour, then remove it, saving the mixture of water, paprika and onion, to which you add cornstarch to thicken and sour cream for richness. Toward the end, you will also make the nokedli, a type of Hungarian, dumpling-like egg noodle (you can also use regular egg noodles or rice, though this is not as authentically Hungarian). You can buy pre-made nokedli in an ethnic grocery and prepare as you would egg noodles, or make your own for even more authentic taste, if you have the time.

To serve, place the chicken pieces over the nokedli, and coat with the gravy and you have a great comfort food! What I always remember as well is how delicious this makes a house smell–mouth-wateringly so!

As I mentioned there are a couple of recipes in the first volume of Recipes of Youngstown (the link is to a site where you can order this and its sequel!). One is from college friend, Lynne Stephens, which came to her through her mother from her Hungarian mother-in-law. The editors must have thought it so good that it appears twice, on pages 103 and 123! Also, on page 128 you will find “Nancy Inglefield’s Chicken Paprikash” which includes instructions for making egg dumplings.

I also located a delightful video demonstration of making chicken paprikash that is part of the “Cooking with Oma” videos. If nothing else, this is a delight to watch just to listen to the accent of this Hungarian “Oma” and to see her billowy white house dress, and her explanation of why she wears it! It’s longer than some of the other videos, but it just seemed the most authentic.

Characteristic of Youngstown food, there is nothing fancy (or at least no fancier than sour cream)–just basic ingredients and inexpensive chicken, but a unique way to present chicken that is perfect for those cold winter nights.

What were your memories of chicken paprikash? Any recipe secrets to the perfect chicken paprikash that you would care to share?

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Black Snow

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One of the beauties of winter is the pristine whiteness of a blanket of new-fallen snow covering streets, sidewalks, roofs, and tree limbs, and turning even the most prosaic landscapes into winter wonderlands.

Rarely do these last long before traffic and snow-removal equipment turns the virgin snowfall into mounds of snow and streets of slush. But in the Youngstown I grew up in, this landscape was changed, or strangely tinted in the phenomenon known to some of us as “black snow.”

In some parts of the city, the snow was black or gray as it fell, picking up the particulates of the steel mills. In most other parts of the city, the snow would soon be speckled with black particles, from the soot in the atmosphere that drifted downward and coated the snow.

It was the winter equivalent of “black rain” that especially afflicted communities in the shadow of the mills like Struthers, but could affect other parts of town depending on the wind patterns.

We didn’t think too much about the fact that the air that colored the snow was also the air we breathed. It was simply a sign of the prosperity Youngstown enjoyed when the mills were going full tilt. Whether it was dirty piles of snow or stains on siding or pitting on cars, at the time we simply regarded it as the color of jobs.

There were few people at the time who questioned whether this was good for us, even when it made so much dirty and ugly. In fact, often such folk were shouted down because more environmental regulations and anti-pollution measures would just take away jobs. The question was, was black snow and rain taking away something else?

It is probably difficult to measure the respiratory effects of this pollution on things such as incidence of cancer or COPD or asthma because of the prevalence of smoking and second hand smoke during this same era. But it probably didn’t do us any favors.

That day is now past, and while it was traumatic for Youngstown, and there is no way to go back to the old days, it has also opened the way for Youngstown to be a cleaner city, one without black rain or snow. One with a river that fish live in and people boat on. One that has the potential of being a healthier place to live. And perhaps one where a snowfall stays beautiful just a bit longer…

Do you remember black rain and black snow? Do you know those who were affected by the air quality of the city in years past?

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — New Year’s Resolutions

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satterfield_cartoon_on_new_years_resolutions_1904It’s common practice to make New Year’s Resolutions, and even more common to break them. My hunch is that we are often not realistic about these things. But Youngstowners are more realistic than most, and here are some of the “realistic” resolutions I can see Youngstowners making.

  1. Instead of “lose weight” I can see a good Youngstowner resolving to “buy a better grade of steak.”
  2. Instead of “exercise more” I can see hard-working Youngstowners resolving to “take a nap when I get home from work.”
  3. Instead of wanting to “read more” the Youngstowner would resolve to “listen to an adventure thriller in my car on the way to the lake.”
  4. Instead of resolving to “meet new people,” the Youngstowner would decide to “stop running with the people who drag me down.”
  5. Instead of resolving to “earn more money,” the realistic Youngstowner would resolve to “not blow so much on the lottery.”
  6. Instead of “become more organized”, the practical Youngstowner resolves to “haul a dumpster up to the house and remove all the junk we are keeping in the spare bedroom and basement.”
  7. Instead of saying “go to the doctor more often” the health-conscious Youngstowner would resolve to “actually get a check up this year.”
  8. Instead of resolving to “spend less time on social media,” the Youngstowner resolves to “go for a hike in Mill Creek Park with a spouse or partner at least once a week and see the real world.”
  9. Instead of “volunteering with a charity,” the Youngstowner takes care of an ailing relative or looks after the home of an ailing neighbor. No resolutions needed–we are family.
  10. Instead of “reducing stress,” the well-adjusted Youngstowner resolves to “enjoy the best of Youngstown cooking with the best of family and friends.”

Those are some of the “realistic” resolutions I can imagine someone from Youngstown making. What would you add to the list?

Happy New Year!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Top Ten of 2016

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haluskiIt has been so much fun to interact with so many friends from Youngstown over the past several years through these posts and so I was thinking as I was planning to write a post for Christmas eve, what could I share with you all? I decided that a list of the top ten posts, decided by you, might be the best thing I could share. So without further ado, since I know you all have much to do for Christmas, here is the list. I will just give you the topic of each post, which will be linked back to the post, so you can read it if you wish:

10. My Bucket List. This was my list of all the places I want to visit when I get time to hang out in Youngstown. Because of foot problems this year, I didn’t get to do that, so it’s still my bucket list!

9. Midway Memories. Thinking back on all the great memories of times at the Canfield Fair.

8. Holy Name Church and School. This fall was the 100th Anniversary of Holy Name Church near where I grew up on the West Side. Shared about the history, some of my own memories, anniversary details and some great pictures courtesy of Tom Balog.

7. Hot Summer Nights. Written last summer, this post evoked for many of us the memories of hot summer nights (usually without A/C) in our growing up years in Youngstown.

6. Shopping Plazas. I recall memories of the great shopping plazas around the city, some no longer in existence, including Liberty Plaza, for which I found a great picture, courtesy of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society.

5. Spinning Bowl Salads. Memories of the 20th Century Restaurant and their famous salad, that led to contact with one of the former owners, Morris Levy and the inclusion of his recipe for Spinning Bowl Salads.

4. The Silver Bridge. Probably one of the most famous bridges in Mill Creek Park. I write about its construction and history.

3. Snow Driving. I think most of you who have lived somewhere else besides Youngstown agreed that most people in other parts don’t know how to snow drive. I remember how we did it with rear wheel drive cars, no radials, in all kinds of conditions.

2. Wedding Soup. I discussed our great love of wedding soup, pointed readers to some sources for recipes, and suggested that there ought to be (if there isn’t) a wedding soup competition! I’ve found you just can’t get good wedding soup elsewhere.

1. Haluski (as you might guess from the picture above). It is no surprise that the top two posts were on food. We love our food. I was surprised how much we love that staple dinner of good comfort food, haluski. And there are pointers to some recipes and a video of a guy making haluski that could have been from Youngstown.

I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoyed researching and writing them. For Christians of all stripes, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and for those of other faiths, Happy Holidays and wishes that you have wonderful times with those who mean the most to you.