I really like then and now photo comparisons!  For as much as has been lost, there are a few places downtown that would be almost the same.

 

By the way, the old photo is probably from the mid-to-late 50s, based on the cars I can see.

Dblcut3, I have to say I stumbled on this site by accident while looking for something else. After seeing the pictures I had to join just to tell you how awesome your pictures are. I`d love to see more before and present day photos if you have them. 

Great job!! 

On 9/8/2022 at 12:20 PM, Gladiator said:

Dblcut3, I have to say I stumbled on this site by accident while looking for something else. After seeing the pictures I had to join just to tell you how awesome your pictures are. I`d love to see more before and present day photos if you have them. 

Great job!! 

Thank you! I'm quite busy these days but I do have a list of old photos I plan to eventually make before and after pictures for.

Here's some before and after photos from Youngstown's neighborhoods that I finally got around to making! I wanted to take some better quality photos, but it's hard to find the time, so Street View will have to suffice... Most historic photos are from Downtown, but I'm far more interested in photos from average neighborhoods like these, but it's hard to find photos like these. I think it's pretty crazy how Youngstown went from having dense, lively, vibrant neighborhoods with beautiful architecture to now being largely a desolate urban prairie in many neighborhoods.

 

The Hazelton neighborhood (East Side) from Center Street Bridge, 1953. This neighborhood was always a low-income slum for the most part, but today, very little of the original structures remain. Although it can't be seen in the after photo, the St. Nicholas Byzantine Church seen on the far right in the before picture still remains.

 

This photo shows the corner of South Ave. and Lucius Ave. in the South Side's  Cottage Grove neighborhood. The Coconut Grove building still remains standing today and is home to a dive bar (I really wish that old neon sign was still there!) - I'm sad to report though that this "after" photo is already outdated as the Time Out/Isaly's Building on the right has been demolished this year... Yet another old neighborhood commercial building lost.

 

The corner of Broadway and Wick Ave. in the Wick Park neighborhood. Youngstown's North Side used to be a very quaint and vibrant neighborhood full of impressive architecture. Sadly, most of it is now gone, and in the case of this photo, not a single structure remains. The loss of Youngstown's North Side is incredibly depressing. In another universe where it was preserved, it could've been very similar to Cleveland Heights or Akron's Highland Square today.

 

Somewhere on Rayen Avenue in 1953. It's hard for me to definitively locate the "after" location, but due to the curvature of the road, I'm guessing that it's somewhere around the corner of Rayen and Watt. This entire neighborhood was demolished for urban renewal very soon after this photo was taken. Rayen Avenue in particular was widened into a mini-highway of sorts, becoming the main thoroughfare between the East Side and Downtown. Nothing from this neighborhood remains.

 

 

Arlington Avenue, near YSU. Technically, Arlington Avenue is still a National Historic District, however, all but two houses were torn down during "urban renewal" despite efforts by preservationists to save it. Most of the current YSU campus actually looked like this originally. However, despite the Near North Side having some of the city's most impressive architecture, it was virtually all demolished in order to expand YSU's campus. This is yet another example of a neighborhood which could have been a stunning walkable, urban neighborhood had it survived to today.

 

 

Lastly, here's the corner of Oak Hill Ave. and W. Warren Ave. in the South Side. This neighborhood has always been pretty rough, including when the photo was taken. However, it still had most of its original structures standing back then. Ironically, despite being a very bad neighborhood today, this before and after might be one of the only "good" changes - despite the two old homes on the left being demolished, they were replaced with new homes in the early-2000s:

Stunning. Thanks for sharing. Having family in Youngstown, I got see it in the 1970s before it was wiped out. Most of my memories are just quick images. But I have a vivid memory of crossing Center Street bridge on a cold day shortly before Christmas 1977. I'll never forget the large amount of steam from Republic Steel's Haselton Works drifting through that steel truss bridge. Even into the 1980s, Market Street south of downtown was very densely developed, heavily trafficked and active neighborhood with many shops and restaurants. 

On 4/11/2023 at 11:26 PM, KJP said:

Stunning. Thanks for sharing. Having family in Youngstown, I got see it in the 1970s before it was wiped out. Most of my memories are just quick images. But I have a vivid memory of crossing Center Street bridge on a cold day shortly before Christmas 1977. I'll never forget the large amount of steam from Republic Steel's Haselton Works drifting through that steel truss bridge. Even into the 1980s, Market Street south of downtown was very densely developed, heavily trafficked and active neighborhood with many shops and restaurants. 

As someone who's younger, it actually makes me really sad that I wasn't able to see Youngstown before everything got torn down. It's even sadder how few photos/reminders of the past we have in these old neighborhoods.

There's actually many photos if you dig for them. If you drive from Slavic Village down into the industrial Flats, you can get a sense of what Youngstown was like. Same if you visit Girard near the Vallourec mill. It can never be the same of course. But those are two of the closest experiences I can think of.