(From Allen at the YTownHistoricHomesBldgs Yahoo group)
Folks,
I'm back in Youngstown for almost another month of working on
my properties. I stopped by the house on Woodbine Street
to look over the work my crew has been doing while I was back
home in MD. Just as I entered the house through the kitchen door
a red, late 70' GMC pickup truck backed into the driveway of a
vacant rental property next to mine and two guys jumped out,
walked right up to the side entrance on the house next door
and entered, went upstairs and began removing contents from the
house.
I know the lady that owns the house next door and called her on
my cell phone to ask if she had workmen coming out to clean, do
repairs, whatever - she didn't - so I called the Y.P.D. and hid
in my own property, looking out the windows and trying to get
a description. They loaded some very expensive weight lifting
equipment from the house into their pickup, closed the side
door and took off.
I waited for over ten minutes for a cruiser to come, made a report
and they said another car would come back to get more information.
When the second car (car 103) came back with a different officer
in it (shifts had just changed) one of the neighbhors pulled up
and we told him what had just happened. He took off in his car,
looking for the house strippers and their pickup truck.
As luck would have it, he FOUND them parked in the driveway of
a house on Thornton Avenue, between Elm Street and Florencedale.
By this time, the owner of the house next door had arrived. We
convinced the officer in car #103 to go to the address on Thornton.
He did, and called for a backup cruiser and when I drove from
Woodbine over to Thornton to see what was going on , the two cops
were stuffing the perpetrators into one of the cruisers to haul
them to jail.
We all have GOT to look out for our neighbors if we EVER want
our neighborhoods to get better - and then stay that way. When
enough people in a neighborhood get together and say - "enough,
we won't tolerate this any more" then the crime problem gets
better.
2 comments:
Thats a great story! Good job!
I just want to thank you for your wonderful blog! I also grew up in Youngstown and share many of your sentiments regarding the place and its people. I currently live and work as a teacher in Brooklyn, NY but spend my summers here. Each summer I take stock of what's changed. My brother and I usually take a drive through each of our old neighborhoods and reminince and lament together. I plan on moving back to the North side after this school year and take up the fight. It's wonderful to know that I'm not the only person who loves this city. Keep up the great work!
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