I was impressed with how clean downtown Youngstown was;  its not what you'd expect when the city is compared with Gary or East St. Louis.

 

 

 

Mahoning County Courthouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This sucker is coming down for a parking lot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It really says something about the county when they need that large of a building for Children's Services

 

Engaging street level!

 

All gone except the Liberty  :-(

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OMG Cedar's is still open.

^Tell me about it... many a night of my teen years were spent there. They've cleaned up downtown a lot - it helped that they reopened Federal Street to traffic through the center of town.

The State Theatre is beyond saving.  But, the powers that be say they will try to save the facade.

 

Scaffolding just went up on the building (the John R. Davis building) to the right of the State this week, signalling the beginning of its restoration.

 

Recently, an engineering firm was hired to determine the condition of the Kress building, to see if it is still salvageable. (this might have been covered in another thread in the NE Oho development forum)

 

Unfortunately, I think the Liberty/Paramount is doomed.  It is co-owned by Grande Venues and Lou Frangos. (and Grande Venues seems to be fly-by-night)  Mr. Frangos has stated he'd like to turn that into a parking lot. (but also save the facade)

Looks very clean, yet has about as much street/sidewalk activity as Gary or East St. Louis.

 

Glad to see some new private enterprise (Sky Bank, Chase etc). Can't have all the new construction and renovations be for courts, government buildings, prisons, museums and other similar investments that suggest your town's economy lives off punishing crime, welfare services and remembering a happier past. BTW, that wall mural from the 1920s is quite devastating.

Paramount? As in theater?

Yes. Paramount purchased it in 1929.

Looks very clean, yet has about as much street/sidewalk activity as Gary or East St. Louis.

Most of the time, downtown Youngstown is barren of people after 5pm.  We're just happy that there is street life on occasions when there is a show at the DeYor Center (Powers) or Party on the Plaza.  These types of events are slowly becoming more common.

Can't have all the new construction and renovations be for courts, government buildings, prisons, museums and other similar investments that suggest your town's economy lives off punishing crime, welfare services and remembering a happier past.

The restoration of the John R. Davis building is being done by a private entity.  When it's done, the third floor will be a residence, the second floor will be an architect's office, and the first floor will be some sort of retail.  Hopefully, if they ever get around to converting the Wick and Realty buildings into Condos/Apartments, the added residents downtown will help bring in more businesses.

BTW, that wall mural from the 1920s is quite devastating.

It really is.  It's quite frustrating sometimes that Youngstown still seems to have that "new = better" mentality.

My Mom and Dad always had stories about McKelvey's and when they were teenagers hanging out in Downtown Youngstown. Although I'm too young to remember McKelvey's, I was happy just to get a cardboard pop-up of a Higbee’s delivery truck (McKelvey’s later became Higbee’s) from what I remember of Downtown Youngstown.

 

 

Yes. Paramount purchased it in 1929.

 

It must be a different Paramount theater. I was assuming that it was constructed by Paramount Studios to show their silent films --

 

http://www.paramountartscenter.com/index.cfm?page=history&subPage=building

 

The only ones built were Denver, Colorado; Aurora, Illinois; Oakland, California; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Abilene, Texas; Bristol, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; Charlottesville, Virginia; Anderson, Indiana; Austin, Texas; and Springfield, Massachusetts

 

 

Yes. Paramount purchased it in 1929.

 

It must be a different Paramount theater. I was assuming that it was constructed by Paramount Studios to show their silent films --

 

http://www.paramountartscenter.com/index.cfm?page=history&subPage=building

 

The only ones built were Denver, Colorado; Aurora, Illinois; Oakland, California; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Abilene, Texas; Bristol, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; Charlottesville, Virginia; Anderson, Indiana; Austin, Texas; and Springfield, Massachusetts

 

 

It opened as the Liberty and was bought by Paramount Pictures. I think it was silent until Paramount bought it but that is just a guess.

It must be a different Paramount theater. I was assuming that it was constructed by Paramount Studios to show their silent films --

 

http://www.paramountartscenter.com/index.cfm?page=history&subPage=building

 

The only ones built were Denver, Colorado; Aurora, Illinois; Oakland, California; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Abilene, Texas; Bristol, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; Charlottesville, Virginia; Anderson, Indiana; Austin, Texas; and Springfield, Massachusetts

 

It was originally the Liberty Theater, designed by C. Howard Crane.  I think Paramount purchased it to compete with the Warner Theater just down the street. (now the Packard Music Hall)

"Glad to see some new private enterprise (Sky Bank, Chase etc)."

 

Not so much new, just the newest incarnations of merged/acquired banks (Sky used to be Mahoning Bank, Chase was Bank One, etc.).

^ And some old... I'm amazed this still exists.

 

It was originally the Liberty Theater, designed by C. Howard Crane.  I think Paramount purchased it to compete with the Warner Theater just down the street. (now the Packard Music Hall)

 

Packard is in Warren.

Nice!

It really is.  It's quite frustrating sometimes that Youngstown still seems to have that "new = better" mentality.

 

I was referring instead to the street activity. Downtown was still pretty active through the 1970s to about 1981. The following year, it seemed as though the city was evacuated.

It was originally the Liberty Theater, designed by C. Howard Crane.  I think Paramount purchased it to compete with the Warner Theater just down the street. (now the Packard Music Hall)

 

Packard is in Warren.

Wow, I didn't realize I was that tired last night.  I meant Powers Auditorium. :oops:

It really is.  It's quite frustrating sometimes that Youngstown still seems to have that "new = better" mentality.

 

I was referring instead to the street activity. Downtown was still pretty active through the 1970s to about 1981. The following year, it seemed as though the city was evacuated.

I'm only 30, and not from the Youngstown area, so I wouldn't know.  But downtown continued to have the kind of street life seen in that 1920's photo until the early 80's?

Yep, and right around the very early 1980s - the collapse of the steel mills along with white flight (and retail) to the 'burbs, along with the weekly mob rub-outs, along with the influx of crack cocaine, and you had the "perfect storm" to wipe out much of the vibrancy of the city. I remember when I was about six years old (in 1978) and my parents took me to downtown Youngstown and while it wasn't Times Square, it was pretty active - we stopped in at Strouss' (renamed Kaufmanns, now Macys), did a little window shopping, and had to decide between a dozen places where we'd eat. That was gone in the span of a few short years.

I was there on a Saturday, so that accounts for some of the lack of street walkers. Lots of people were parked downtown, however.

 

I asked a man in a suit how to get to Mill Creek Park. He didn't have a clue.

I've been there at weekday lunches when there was still barely anyone on the street.  Downtown Youngstown's worker population really isn't all that big.  I seem to remember the figure being somewhere around 15,000 or so.

Yep, and right around the very early 1980s - the collapse of the steel mills along with white flight (and retail) to the 'burbs, along with the weekly mob rub-outs, along with the influx of crack cocaine, and you had the "perfect storm" to wipe out much of the vibrancy of the city. I remember when I was about six years old (in 1978) and my parents took me to downtown Youngstown and while it wasn't Times Square, it was pretty active - we stopped in at Strouss' (renamed Kaufmanns, now Macys), did a little window shopping, and had to decide between a dozen places where we'd eat. That was gone in the span of a few short years.

 

Wow.

 

I recalled seeing photos of some active steel mills with a bridge jetting in between. A few short years later, it was all gone sans the bridge -- a massive vacant lot. Thousands of jobs seemingly disappeared overnight. Downtown all but died. Entire neighborhoods "evacuated."

 

Is there a book on this? I would seriously take up a reading if someone recommends some nice ones! :)

There was a great deal of discussion (and photos) about Youngstown's past on a thread I started a while ago. There also were some suggestions of books about Youngstown. The thread is at:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1886.msg16382#msg16382

^^ Center Steet Bridge. This is the site of the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube.

 

Center Street was the site of the Republic Steel mill. YS&T's two mills were located elsewhere -- the Campbell Works was located two miles farther east, nearer to SR616; the Brier Hill Works was located (still stands the last I saw) on the northwest side of downtown, nearer to SR711.

This was near the site where Republic intersected with Sheet & Tube Campbell Works (to the right of the picture). The hill in the back ground is Campbell (to the right of the bridge) and the east side of Youngstown to the left. I'm not sure exactally where Republic ended and S&T began. There may have been some other industries in between the two and possibly they didn't intersect at all? Anyway they were not too far apart from each other.

 

 

South entrance to S&T was about a mile or mile and a half from the picture above.

 

 

View of the Campbell Works from above. The South entrance is top center and the west end expands what would be not far from the Center St Bridge:

 

 

Photo from 4/07 visit. This was part of the former S&T Brier Hill Works. Now the 711 connector (Division Street Bridge) runs in front of the current mill.

 

 

On the map below; the South entrance of S&T and the location of the new Center Street Bridge. From the aerial it looks like the west end extended to about where the railroad tracks cross the Mahoning River (about 2000-2500 ft from the bridge).

Yeah.. after the Campbell (pronounced Cammel if you're from the area) Works closed, the area went to hell. It's in horrible condition anymore.

Youngstown's steel industry was its economic backbone, and the whole thing collapsed rather abruptly. I believe I read somewhere that more than 27,000 highly-paid jobs disappeared in less than four years.

 

This building, designed by Michael Graves, is the Historical Center of Labor and Industry. It tells the story of the area's steel and coal-mining and other industries very powerfully, and is well worth a visit when you're in the area:

This was near the site where Republic intersected with Sheet & Tube Campbell Works (to the right of the picture). The hill in the back ground is Campbell (to the right of the bridge) and the east side of Youngstown to the left. I'm not sure exactally where Republic ended and S&T began. There may have been some other industries in between the two and possibly they didn't intersect at all? Anyway they were not too far apart from each other.

 

Great photos, Florida Guy! I found a large version of the aerial you posted. I won't post it here since it's too large, but I'll supply the link and you can inspect it in greater detail....

 

http://www.ysu.edu/mahoning_river/Historic/ROVERVIE.jpg

 

And to clarify, the YS&T Campbell Works was separated from the Republic Mill by Koppers Inc. All three were so close to each other that one couldn't tell by looking where one began and the other ended. But Koppers is still standing.

 

BTW, I believe the YS&T Brier Hill Works is completely gone. The rolling mills you shot by 711 is V&M Star Steel.

 

If you wanted to see a truly amazing photo, check out this one, circa 1960. It's looking northwest from Struthers, toward the Center Street bridge (appears at the upper left and looks red either from paint or oxidation from the mills). Most of the steel facilities in this view are Republic's, with Koppers seen at the right. YS&T Campbell works is just out of view at the right. The rail yard at the bottom is an interchange yard for the Lake Erie & Eastern with Pennsylvania Railroad's large Haselton Yard to the right of it.

 

 

While searching for more photos, I found this tidbit:

 

"Then in the late 1970s Campbell's economy was devastated by the close of the steel mills. Before 1977 the city could count on over $100 million in personal property tax valuation; by 2000, that valuation had fallen below $10 million."

http://www.ysu.edu/mahoning_river/campbell2.htm

^ This is the 30th anniversary of "Black Monday." Thank you for the clarifications, I remember driving over the bridge and my partents telling me thats where grandpa worked, S&T was visable to the east of the bridge (if you could see through the smoke).

 

^ from the south entrance.

 

This was taken from Brier Hill and is adjacent to Star Steel. I don't think this was part of S&T either, from it what I remember it was directly behind this structure. It is actually amazing of the density of the industries that lined the Mahoning River through the valley.

 

 

Cool. Found more pics, including some shots of the YS&T (apparently in the mid-1980s, shortly before it was demolished)....

 

http://coalcampusa.com/rustbelt/oh/oh2.htm

 

And some tremendously detailed photos here....

 

http://www.ysu.edu/mahoning_river/river_communities.htm

Wow.

With the 30th anniversary of Youngstown Sheet & Tube's closure, the Youngstown Vindicator did a historical overview in their paper last week. Here's a timeline they posted.....

 

Published: Sunday, September 16, 2007

 

January 1969: Lykes Corp., a New Orleans steamship company, takes over ownership of Youngstown Sheet & Tube, which was founded in 1901.

 

June 1977: Sheet & Tube reports second-quarter loss.

 

August 1977: 150 jobs cut at Sheet & Tube headquarters.

 

September 1977: Sheet & Tube announces closing of its Campbell Works, the relocation of its headquarters from Boardman to the Chicago area and the elimination of 5,000 jobs. Within 10 days, more than 1,000 workers are out of work.

 

November 1977: Lykes announces plans to merge with LTV Corp.'s Jones & Laughlin Steel division.

 

February 1978: Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley kicks off the Save Our Valley campaign.

 

September 1978: Religious leaders and economic experts announce $525 million plan to reopen Campbell Works.

 

December 1978: Sheet & Tube name disappears as its parent company, Lykes, receives approval to merge with Jones and Laughlin Steel.

 

March 1979: Carter Administration refuses to fund reopening of the Campbell Works.

 

May 1979: Ecumenical Coalition gives up attempt to save the mill.

 

 

November 1979: U.S. Steel announces that it will close its Ohio Works and McDonald Works, which will eliminate 3,600 jobs.

 

December 1979: The last blast furnace at the Campbell Works shuts down, signaling the end for 1,400 former Sheet & Tube workers still on the job there at the Brier Hill Works.

 

January 1982: Republic Steel begins massive layoffs at its pipe mill and blast furnace in Youngstown that eventually will eliminate 2,600 jobs in the city. In 2002, the pipe mill was sold to Maverick Tube, which later closed it.

 

October 1983: Republic Steel approves merger with LTV Corp.

 

August 1986: The last of the former Sheet & Tube operations in Youngstown and Campbell are shut down by LTV. Nearly 300 jobs are lost.

 

April 2001: CSC in Warren, formerly Copperweld Steel, closes, eliminating 1,400 jobs. Today, an investment group is working on restarting part of the mill.

 

Source: Vindicator files

 

The debate continues, 30 years later....

 

http://www.vindy.com/content/local_regional/289868112774119.php

 

Published: Thursday, September 20, 2007

 

FATE OR FOLLY? Panelists disagree on whether Black Monday was inevitable.

 

By DON SHILLING

 

VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR

 

YOUNGSTOWN — Judge Diane Vettori recalls visiting the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan in 1975.

 

Her father, who worked at Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., looked at an exhibit on steel making in the 1800s and remarked, "The problem is that's still how we make steel in Youngstown."

 

Black Monday struck two years later and her father lost his job. So did about 5,000 others as Sheet & Tube announced the closing of its Campbell Works and the relocation of its corporate headquarters.

 

The event Sept. 19, 1977, was marked Wednesday as nearly 200 people who attended a program at the Youngstown Historical Center.

 

Judge Vettori's observation during a public comment period framed a key question of the evening: Were the closings of local steel mills inevitable?

 

"It was inevitable," said a panelist, William Farragher, who was director of marketing communications for Sheet & Tube. "It was coming down the track for a long time. When it hit, there wasn't anything anyone could do."

 

Why it happened

 

Iron ore and coal, key ingredients in steel making, were largely gone from the area, he said. Ore was being shipped in from overseas, which was expensive, he said.

 

 

Local mills were landlocked and had to rely on rail and truck for shipments, he said. Competitors along the East Coast and Great Lakes used less-expensive water routes.

 

Farragher added that Japanese mills were using electric arc furnaces to melt scrap into steel. New competitors could produce small batches of steel to meet a new demand in industry — just-in-time delivery.

 

Still, the Youngstown mills were profitable and they had a work force that was more productive than Sheet & Tube's plants in Indiana, he said.

 

But for decades, Sheet & Tube shareholders were looking to get their money out of the company, he said. It finally happened in 1969 when the company was sold to Lykes Corp. of New Orleans. Eventually, Sheet & Tube lost its longtime executives who were committed to local mills.

 

Looking at those facts, Gerald Dickey, a union official at the company's Brier Hill works in 1977, reaches a different conclusion on the closings.

 

"It wasn't inevitable. It didn't have to happen. It was a man-made thing," he said.

 

It was man-made because the mills weren't modernized, he said. He said plans had been developed to install a basic oxygen furnace at Sheet & Tube to replace an open hearth but it wasn't approved.

 

Compare that with the former Republic Steel Corp. mill in Warren, which now survives as WCI Steel. A basic oxygen furnace was installed in 1965 and a continuous caster in 1990.

 

Plan was developed

 

Staughton Lynd, a lawyer who was involved in efforts to restart the Campbell Works, said the local superintendent for U.S. Steel developed a plan to build an electric arc furnace to modernize the company's McDonald Works. It was never acted on.

 

Lynd said a local mill could have been bought for $20 million at the time but it would have cost $200 million to modernize. That was much more than a federal loan guarantee program had available, so the federal government rejected funding for a local effort to restart the Campbell Works in 1979.

 

The Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley didn't get the funding but it didn't fail, said the Rev. Edward Weisheimer, former minister at Central Christian Church in Youngstown.

 

The coalition challenged the assumption that corporations are the sole owners of the plants, he said. The coalition claimed that the community had a stake in the mills because it provided the schools, hospitals and roads that supported them.

 

"It was an issue of justice," he said.

 

At the end of the program, which was part of a lecture series for Youngstown State University's Center for Working-Class Studies, some people in the audience asked what could be done to create more high-paying jobs in the region.

 

"I don't see jobs in Youngstown, high-paying jobs," said David Venerose of Youngstown.

 

He said the area has relied on General Motors' Lordstown plant for years. He warned that without action, the area will be holding an event like this someday to remember the end of automaking in the area.

 

[email protected]

More stuff....

_______________

 

http://www.muninetguide.com/articles/Youngstown-Demolishing-its-Way-T-242.php

 

From 2007

Youngstown: Demolishing its Way Toward Tomorrow

 

A fascinating experiment in urban renewal is under way in the northeastern Ohio city of Youngstown, a municipality most often identified in recent years as a Rust Belt casualty undone by the decline of the U.S. steel industry.

 

Rather than resigning itself to a sad and inevitable fate, however, Youngstown leadership has embarked on a novel approach toward a noble destination. For lack of a better term, one might call it “shrinking toward prosperity.”

 

In the past year alone, city planners estimate they have demolished more than 500 buildings as part of a plan to raze all of Youngstown’s slums and allow green space or new development to connect neighborhoods and commercial districts that survived the collapse of the local steel economy.

 

A bit of history: founded in 1797 near the point where the Mahoning River meets Mill Creek, Youngstown was, for most of the 20th century, a thriving industrial city populated largely by families whose parents or grandparents had emigrated from Europe, many of them from Italy, Poland, Greece, and Slovakia, and by African-Americans from the South, all looking for work in the steel furnaces and foundries and related industries.

 

Most found jobs in the mills of U.S. Steel, Republic Steel, Bethlehem Steel, and Youngstown Sheet & Tube, all of which had major operations in or around Youngstown.

 

A short list of luminaries who were born and/or raised in this mini-metropolis include President William F. McKinley; movie mogul Jack Warner; boxers Ernie Shavers and Ray “Boom-Boom” Mancini; shopping mall magnate and San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo; football quarterbacks Ron Jaworski and Bernie Kosar; TV stars Catherine Bach and Ed O’Neill; movie director Chris Columbus; actor Austin Pendleton; economist Arthur Laffer; American Communist Party President Gus Hall; and imprisoned Ohio congressman James Traficant.

 

At its zenith in the 1950s and early 1960s, Youngstown was a city of more than 160,000 people with a bustling downtown, good schools, upscale department stores, thriving parishes, well-maintained roads, parks and golf courses, and a legendary amusement park, Idora, whose two roller-coasters – the Wildcat and the Jackrabbit – rivaled the finest to be found at Disneyland or Coney Island.

 

Unfortunately, however, Youngstown’s economy relied almost exclusively on the steel industry, and never became as diversified as larger Midwestern industrial cities such as Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

 

There were some harbingers of decline by the late 1960s, especially the 1969 acquisition of Youngstown Sheet & Tube by New Orleans-based Lykes Corporation, which placed control of the company outside of the Mahoning Valley and, in short order, burdened the community’s primary steel producer with mountains of debt.

 

As foreign competition began to decimate the U.S. steel industry in the 1970s, employment began to shrink. The unkindest cut of all came on September 19, 1977 – an event still remembered by many Youngstowners as “Black Monday” – when Youngstown Sheet & Tube closed its doors, sounding a death knell for the local steel industry. U.S. Steel withdrew two years later, and Republic went bankrupt in the 1980s.

 

Unemployment in Youngstown rose to 21 percent by late 1982, and by the 2000 census, the city’s population had declined by half to about 82,000. Square miles of the city were simply abandoned and, had it not been for Youngstown State University and General Motors’ nearby Lordstown plant, the city’s two remaining large employers, Youngstown may very well have become a 21st century urban ghost town.

 

The city’s decline was even elegized in a song entitled “Youngstown” by working class bard Bruce Springsteen on his 1995 album “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” an apropos comparison of modern smokestack America to the Depression-era “dust bowl.”

 

As if that wasn’t bad enough, organized crime in Youngstown, which always had a foothold in the city, took advantage of the city’s plight and entrenched itself to the point where ABC’s “Nightline” did a show on Youngstown corruption, and pundits joked that anyone who wanted to see the real “Sopranos” ought to visit Youngstown.

 

 

With the beginning of the new millennium, however, local leaders began to create and, more importantly, act upon their vision of a new “post-steel economy.”

 

The blueprint for change is “Youngstown 2010,” developed by a team lead by Jay Williams, who spent five years as the city’s Director of Community Development before becoming Mayor in 2005.

 

Only 34 at the time of his election, Williams was the youngest, the first African-American, and the first independent candidate to be voted mayor in Youngstown history. His electoral upset was both historic and stunning, and viewed by many political observers as a watershed event in the changing political landscape of the community.

 

What is so unique about “Youngstown 2010” is that it plans not for growth but for a smaller albeit more prosperous city. Bulldozers are leveling block after block of abandoned buildings and empty lots and replacing them with green fields and parkland or leaving room for development that would connect residential neighborhoods and/or commercial districts that remain viable.

 

One of the most intriguing aspects of the plan is what its authors foresee as a multi-year effort to create a corridor through what is now a slum that would connect those downtown areas that are still well-populated with the southward expansion of Youngstown State University.

 

The college and city are working together and in apparent harmony and cohesion (which historically has not always been the case) to realize this long-term vision. In fact, city’s planning and development efforts have been recognized by the American Planning Association and featured in articles by the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, USA Today, and Governing Magazine.

 

The Youngstown experiment is regarded as being so unique that a TV station from as far away as The Netherlands recently sent a crew to the city to tape a feature on the progress made to date. After looking around and interviewing city officials, the producer of the segment remarked in a thick Dutch accent: “Maybe Bruce Springsteen will have to write some new lyrics to his song.”

 

Robert McEwen

Clean...and desolate.

I remember driving through that area in the mid-1960s and being amazed at the constant parade of ore trains that seemed to be moving on every rail line I saw.

 

In 2000 I made an involuntary 3-day visit to Youngstown (truck transmission broke on I-80, and I spent three days at the Super 8 waiting for parts & repairs). I took a cab downtown to the Industry & Labor museum, and then walked around a little bit. It was mid-day on a weekday and I literally saw no other pedestrians and few cars.

 

The same cabby picked me up downtown to take me back to the motel, a black man, and he was concerned about where I'd been. He asked if I had any idea how risky it was to be down there walking around alone. That was when they had the pedestrian mall, and it was deserted and tired-looking.

Now I'm really wishing I'd had more time to explore the neighborhoods. The amount of abandoned houses in every neighborhood must really be mind blowing.

 

I know Youngstown is embracing the Shrinking Cities concept, but I'm not too firmilar with it in specific terms. I often think it would be beneficial for cities to conciously abandon certain neighborhoods (help those residents fill in gaps in neighborhoods selected for revitalization) and then completely demolish the remaining housing and infrustructure in the worst neighborhoods. Maybe even turn the land back into an agricultural use. It only takes money.

Cool. Found more pics, including some shots of the YS&T (apparently in the mid-1980s, shortly before it was demolished)....

 

http://coalcampusa.com/rustbelt/oh/oh2.htm

 

And some tremendously detailed photos here....

 

http://www.ysu.edu/mahoning_river/river_communities.htm

 

I am in love with yo.

 

The first link has many areas I've poked around on my site, Abandoned. Those are some amazing places...

I posted this in a previous Youngstown thread - this is the Oak Hill neighborhood just to the southwest of downtown Youngstown. The tags are mostly abandoned buildings which have been photographed (and posted on urbanohio.com's main photo gallery). But zoom out and look at how many vacant lots exist - and remember these streets used to be packed with single-family and two-family homes:

 

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111501388969053870983.0000011257530374ea6d6&ll=41.09077,-80.662222&spn=0.01145,0.018668&t=k&z=16&om=1

^Thanks. Pretty depressing.

 

So I take it Southern Park Mall is where the retail moved to?

First it was Boardman Plaza along Rt. 224, a strip plaza which still exists today which was one of Eddie DeBartolo's first projects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_J._DeBartolo%2C_Sr.. After that, it was Southern Park Mall and to some extent Eastwood Mall, though it targeted the Warren/Niles area and mostly northern Y-town neighborhoods.

 

Wikipedia's entry for Boardman basically sums it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardman%2C_Ohio

Nice map! I started one a while back with abandonments in Youngstown but it grew by leaps and bounds... then I forgot my account name. @#$@#$

Because the nice weather will soon end, I decided to take some of my own pictures of downtown.  I also wanted to take them on a weekday to show that there are a few people downtown.

 

These are in chronological order from when I arrived downtown in the morning, to my "commute" home.

Noon...

On the way home...

Almost home...

 

And there you have it!  A day in my life, as if you cared. :-D

Looks like a fun day.

A very beautiful downtown!

Thanks! Keep 'em coming!

Another cool site I came across....

 

http://todengine.blogspot.com/