What Youngstown looks like to me (in pictures - LOTS!) (Cleveland: house, buy)

[ZSL1985]

Very nice pictures. Thanks for posting!

[ColdAilment]

Never seen Youngstown before, but the pictures you took definitely captures its beauty. I like the downtown pictures, the city looks very old and reminds me of a New England city, but it looks extremely well kept, the buildings are well maintained and the streets are well paved. Lots of older houses too from the early 20th century, very pretty though.

Only complaint is, a few words beneath some of the pictures to explain what the buildings were would have been nice. I'm curious about what some of their functions are. I did this in my thread for Meridian Mississippi, located here:

Inspiring Pictures of Meridian Mississippi (photo album)

Good work on the pictures!

[SorryIMovedBack]

Y-Town probably looks "New England" because it was Connecut's Western Reserve. The small towns with their old buildings around the town square really look New England-ish.

Only the downtown area is well-kept. The Victorian commercial buildings were replaced by newer stuff. Much of Y-Town downtown architecture is 1900-1920s. Most of that Wick Park area is boarded up and vacant, or boarded up and occupied by who knows who. Most of the south side looks ghetto. Market Street (Rt. 7 ) south of the river in 2006 was mostly empty storefronts and a few big empty houses and abandoned schools all the way to down in Boardman or whatever that is, closer to Rt. 224. And also there were some huge old homes on all of those side streets off of Market. I drove through there a week or so ago, and Market has empty lots, and many of the side streets have lost the almost the entire first block of homes on either side of Market.


There is a Youngstown + Warren video in this collection that shows what the rougher areas look like. It was shocking to me that in some of the other videos by the same person, the supposedly ghetto east side of Cleveland doesn't look anywhere near as far gone as Youngstown and Warren do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IoQ7eWHULc
RNR Ent. presents a TC Production - YouTube

[JR_C]

Originally Posted by ColdAilment

Never seen Youngstown before, but the pictures you took definitely captures its beauty. I like the downtown pictures, the city looks very old and reminds me of a New England city, but it looks extremely well kept, the buildings are well maintained and the streets are well paved. Lots of older houses too from the early 20th century, very pretty though.

Only complaint is, a few words beneath some of the pictures to explain what the buildings were would have been nice. I'm curious about what some of their functions are. I did this in my thread for Meridian Mississippi, located here:

Inspiring Pictures of Meridian Mississippi (photo album)

Good work on the pictures!

Thanks!

As you can see from the post following mine, my picture set is hardly a balanced representation of the city. It's just representative of what I like in the areas I spend the most time in. There are lots of people who like to showcase Youngstown's blight, and so I didn't bother with that.

As for what the buildings downtown are: they are (or were) mostly commercial/office buildings, and government buildings. Some of the office buildings have been converted to residential apartments.

[SorryIMovedBack]

I didn't showcase Y-Town's blight for any reason other than I find it shocking, disgusting, and wasteful. I'm pretty appalled by Sharon and Farrell, too. It's fantastic that younger people are taking an interest in the old commercial buildings and homes. The WWII generation and the Baby Boomers, by and large, had a real love affair with building themselves cheap new houses out in the cornfields, and were disinterested if not downright hostile to anything "old." They were poor stewards of that architectural legacy, for certain. For a long time, there was a tear-it-down or let-it-fall-down mentality on both sides of the border. There were few people interested enough in living in town.

[SorryIMovedBack]

JR_C, it was interesting to read back through this thread, now that I know more about the Y-Town neighborhoods and history. My parents talk about how it was in the '50s and '60s, but my family was more Pittsburgh-oriented and Y-Town was on the decline and had a problematic populace by the time I was a kid, so we never went there.

Mississippi: cardcow has some old postcards that show some of the old Y-Town downtown that was demolished. People here were big into urban renewal. And http://www.metromonthly.net/ has some YouTube videos of the mills and some old pictures.

[sheena12]

I'd love for someone to do the same for Warren!

[JR_C]

Originally Posted by sheena12

I'd love for someone to do the same for Warren!

I think CortlandGirl has.

[No_Recess]

Originally Posted by SorryIMovedBack

Y-Town probably looks "New England" because it was Connecut's Western Reserve. The small towns with their old buildings around the town square really look New England-ish.

Only the downtown area is well-kept. The Victorian commercial buildings were replaced by newer stuff. Much of Y-Town downtown architecture is 1900-1920s. Most of that Wick Park area is boarded up and vacant, or boarded up and occupied by who knows who. Most of the south side looks ghetto. Market Street (Rt. 7 ) south of the river in 2006 was mostly empty storefronts and a few big empty houses and abandoned schools all the way to down in Boardman or whatever that is, closer to Rt. 224. And also there were some huge old homes on all of those side streets off of Market. I drove through there a week or so ago, and Market has empty lots, and many of the side streets have lost the almost the entire first block of homes on either side of Market.


There is a Youngstown + Warren video in this collection that shows what the rougher areas look like. It was shocking to me that in some of the other videos by the same person, the supposedly ghetto east side of Cleveland doesn't look anywhere near as far gone as Youngstown and Warren do.
Real Streets & Hoods: vol.3 Youngstown, Ohio (Warren and Campbell, Ohio) - YouTube
RNR Ent. presents a TC Production - YouTube

The arson rate in Ytown makes the blight that much worse in comparison to Cleveland.

Per 100K in 2010:

CLE - 88.7
Ytown - 339.0

Also consider that Ytown is less than half the size of Cleveland in square miles.

[SteelCityRising]

Sigma CTS, CortlandGirl79, and JR_C, I'd like to take this opportunity to commend all three of you for being so informative, insightful, and idealistic about an area that most have written off as being "down and out for the count". My partner and I took a day-trip to Youngstown in Fall 2011, and we really enjoyed our visit. We saw more potential rather than despair. We found the Butler Institute of Art to be quite interesting, we enjoyed Fellows Park, and we bought some great produce at a farmers' market (White House Farm, perhaps?) near Canfield. We also stopped at Friendly's in Poland for ice cream.

One thing I really like about the Youngstown/Warren area is the affordability of housing. That attribute initially attracted me to move to Pittsburgh from Northern Virginia in 2010, as I knew I'd never be able to afford my own place in that area; however, with how "trendy" Pittsburgh is now becoming the cost of housing here is rising to the point where I may also be priced out of here if I don't buy within the next few years. If that DOES become the case I will likely follow JR_C's lead and buy in Youngstown.