Green Acres... in Youngstown

We were heading to my parents' house on the edge of Youngstown early Thanksgiving morning, when we accidentally got on Interstate 680 instead of staying on I-80 toward Hubbard. I cringed, knowing this would take us around downtown Youngstown and spit us out on Oak Street, a road I had traversed many times as a child but now avoided if at all possible.

Oak Street was never what you would have called a picturesque street. It was dotted with simple two-story houses, food marts, an auto body shop here and there and a of course a couple of beer gardens. (The Royal Oaks, a bar that has been around since Lord knows when, is still there and looks exactly the same as it always has.) Oak Street was urban and working class, a little gritty but still approachable--the words you'd use to describe Youngstown in the 1960s and '70s.

But it got uglier and unfriendlier as the steel mills closed and Youngstown struggled to find a new identity. Houses deteriorated; stores shut their doors. Oak Street became a road you simply traveled down--quickly--to get somewhere else.

Imagine the happy surprise that awaited my family and me as we turned off Rte. 422 and onto Oak Street. With the sun peaking just slightly over the horizon, a misty glow cast down on, of all things, green space. Dilapidated houses had been torn down, and in their stead was nothing more than grass and trees.

Gone were the run-down buildings, the ugly chain-link fences and the litter. The houses that were still standing looked neat. Oak Street looked like a city thoroughfare with pride.

I've been reading about Youngstown's efforts to become a great small town, in part by tearing down unsightly buildings and replacing them with green space. My brief time on Oak Street showed me that this initiative is underway. The street still looks and feels urban and working class, but, hey, that's what Youngstown always was, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

Kudos to Youngstown for this effort. Keep up the good work.

A Great De-Constructive Idea for Youngstown

I sometimes lovingly refer to Youngstown as "the land that time forgot." Driving across some areas of the city and its suburbs, it seems as though the place lies in wait for the steel mills to reemerge.

But right now Youngstown wants to move on in a very positive way. "Deconstruction" promises to remove urban blight through re-use and recycle methods.

A public meeting was held last night in Youngstown with national deconstruction expert David Bennink, who is helping the city with this project. Bennink explained how rather than totally demolishing a home, deconstruction seeks to salvage reusable materials. This of course has a popular green element to it, but deconstruction would have many other positive effects in Youngstown. On his blog, Youngstown Renaissance, Tyler S. Clark Can lists some of the benefits of deconstruction:

* Provides 20 times more jobs than demolition
* Provides skills for workers they can parlay into future jobs
* Keeps Youngstown's legacy of homes at home (instead of shipping it away to West Virginia, et. al.)
* Value-added markets can be created from waste materials

No one would argue that there are many houses around Youngstown that are abandoned and beyond repair, creating an unfortunate eyesore in what is still a welcoming, tight-knit community. For years, residents have asked why such homes haven't been torn down. Now there is an alternative to that, one that removes the blight and in a very productive and potentially lucrative way.

This makes total sense for Youngstown, and I applaud the city's forward thinking! Unfortunately, the public meeting with Mr. Bennink drew only about 50 people, according to an article on www.wytv.com. Such a great opportunity should lure more residents out of their homes to learn how Youngstown is going to turn lemons into lemonade. Hopefully, the City of Youngstown will construct a giant "lemonade stand" in the form of marketing and advertising to let everyone in and around the city understand what good things deconstruction can bring to the Mahoning Valley.

Remembering What It Was All About in Youngstown

Our visit to my parents' house coincided with the Feast of St. Lucy, the patron saint of the church where I was baptized, made my First Communion and Confirmation and was married. The president of the Men's Society of St. Lucy wanted to bring back the traditional "festa," including a procession with the Italian and American flags and part of the liturgy spoken in Italian, as well as a small dinner with music after the Mass.

Even my mother was a bit perplexed by this. "Nobody speaks Italian in this church anymore," she complained to me the other day. But I had a feeling that most people in that beautiful church still recalled the wonderful Italian traditions and songs, and would be happy to relive them.

The service brought tears to my eyes, especially the priest's homily. He talked about the beginnings of the 70-year-old church, and the dedication of the people who founded it and made it strong. These were the same people who labored in the steel mills and fought in world wars. They spoke Italian in their homes and in their church, but they were Americans through and through. Their dream was to build a foundation in Campbell, Ohio, that could be carried on to their children and grandchildren.

But, as the priest said, by the 1970s, their dream began to crumble, through no fault of their own. The steel mills began to close, and young adults moved away in search of their own American dream. This, of course, was good on some levels. First- and second-generation Americans who otherwise might have stayed close to home were able to move to new locations, get a higher education and build their own foundations. At the same time, little Campbell and the other suburbs of Youngstown still stood, proud as ever, but gradually shrinking in population and in opportunities.

Through the decades, schools have closed, churches have closed and people find themselves traveling to far-off areas to visit their children and grandchildren. But the foundation is still there. Not everyone recognizes it, because they are so busy with daily issues. Yet every time I return to Campbell, Ohio, and that church with the elegant stained-glass windows (some bearing the names of my relatives who helped establish the church), I see the foundation, and I still believe.

At the Mass for the feast of St. Lucy, the priest said that the parish was still there for its children, even though they now live far away. He said the church still stands ready to greet them and welcome them home. I feel at home every time I enter that little town and that church. In their own small way, Campbell and St. Lucy and all the other ethnic Catholic churches that dot that landscape act as beacons guiding everyone toward family and worship, patriotism and charity. Inside St. Lucy, there is no disdain for one's country or fellow man; there's no rush hour traffic or pressing business meeting. It's as though life is like it was 70 years ago, full of hard work and simple pleasures. It is, I think, the way life was meant to be, although it didn't last.

Looking back on my eagerness to flee the Youngstown area in 1982, I feel a sense of sadness and guilt. Sadness because I gave up the comfort of that small-town love and hard work in search of something else. Guilt because maybe if I had stayed there, I could have carried on the dream that my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents helped to build. I wasn't the first or the only one to leave, of course, but I carry my share of the responsibility of what happened to my hometown like a heavy cross that I'm forced to shoulder alone.

And so I try in my own way to take a piece of that dream with me and share it with my children. We go back to my hometown often and visit St. Lucy for a dose of small-town humility and strength, and to be hugged and kissed by people who have known me since I was a chubby, shy, (natural) red-headed girl. I'm determined to teach my kids the bits of Italian I know, and to impress upon them the significance that communities like Youngstown once held in our country.

And then there's the message of St. Lucy herself. As children, we would sometimes giggle at the statue of St. Lucy, who holds a dish with a pair of eyeballs. The story goes that the young Lucy refused to marry a pagan and refused to forsake her Christian faith. Roman guards tortured her and gouged out her eyes. What they couldn't take away from her was her clear vision of what was good and true.

Martyr stories today don't seem to hold our attention. How can we relate to someone like this? The priest put it into perspective. Lucy, he said, is a symbol for us to see what's really important, and to realize that what we're looking for is within our reach. "We're all searching for the same thing," he said. "Happiness."

I've lived in large cities and traveled to places around the world, and it turns out that the "happiness" I seek always leads me back to my hometown and my hometown church. Small towns like Youngstown may be shadows of what they once were, but their basic values, principles and dreams are things we should never forget and instead try to emulate.