New videos

Defend Youngstown and Shout Youngstown hosted a Detroit reporter. This is the evidence.

Steel Town 1944

The visuals are stunning. Stacks spewing clouds of smoke into the sky, nearly obscuring the Home Savings & Loan building while men and women, all wearing hats, jump on and off busses at street level. Rivers of molten ore running down chutes to create the ships, tanks or guns that in peacetime would be office buildings. In Youngstown we make steel. We make steel and talk steel.

A World War II -era film created by the Office of War Information, 'Steel Town 1944' offers an incredible glimpse into Youngstown's past. My hope with this blog was to continue to spread Youngstown's rich past while highlighting some of the remarkable things going on to rebuild. For those who lived in the steel boom years of Youngstown's past, in the words of Doc Graham, "The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces."

Some interesting points to watch out for:

• 6:36 - Hooking up the hoist to a bucket of molten iron
  
• 7:30 - The 1944 Wilson-South football game at South High.
• 7:59 - South High School principal's office, classroom and cafeteria
  
• 10:05 - A Youngstown Symphony Orchestra made up entirely of steelworkers and their wives, rehearsing a piece written by Gerald Marovich, a Youngstown-native in the Navy

Not to give the ending away, but this closing quote is a classic:

"When the war is over, we're going to have other problems. We know about that in Youngstown. We've had it here before. There are times when there is no smoke in the sky and mills were quiet. The streets full of men, angry, questioning, wondering. We're beginning to understand that these things don't just happen in one place. They happen everywhere."

Be there or be square!

TODAY! Today! today!

The city will be discussing plans for the "redevelopment" of West Federal Street this afternoon. This plan includes removing the medians and changing the current parking arrangement. I encourage all to attend this meeting and voice your support that green space and not more concrete is the way to improve the Federal Street corridor.

Info:
Monday, August 6, 2007, 3:00 pm, at City Council Chambers, 6th Floor, City Hall, 26 S. Phelps St., Youngstown, Ohio.

I have no idea how this video ended up in my gmail inbox, or who Mark and Betty Duncan are, but they apparently made it. I present Charles Montgomery Burns in "Downtown Denial!"

"Tell your neighbors it came from Haber's"

East Federal Street, 1960's. This will be part of an upcoming DVD on downtown Youngstown in the 1960s. Write to info@metromonthly.net for more information.


Music: "Afro-Harping" by Detroit jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby

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