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Parade-goers delight in comeback of Youngstown festivity
The parade, dormant for about 20 years, is expected to be an annual tradition.
When he was a kid, Milton Taltoan used to come downtown to watch what was then known as the Youngstown Christmas Parade.
That was a while ago — and it’s been nearly 20 years since the last such parade took place.
So when the Campbell man, who grew up in Youngstown, found out about the renamed Downtown Youngstown Holiday Parade, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch it.
Taltoan brought along his wife, Dawn, and their six children to Sunday’s parade.
“This is very impressive,” Taltoan said of the parade. “It’s a nice thing. We need to bring back the things that the city once had. We need to bring back a tradition like this.”
The rest of his family enjoyed the parade.
“I like the candy and being with my family,” said his 5-year-old son, Tremain.
But it was obvious who enjoyed it the most.
“He’s more excited than the kids,” Taltoan’s wife, Dawn, said of her husband.
Milton Taltoan wants the parade to be an annual tradition once again. It looks like that will happen.
“It’s a huge success,” said Lyndsey A. Hughes, the city’s downtown director of special events and special projects, one of the event’s organizers. “We’re going to do this every year. It’s good for the downtown. It’s bringing back a tradition. It hasn’t been done for years, and the downtown has changed since then.”
The parade began in the 1940s and attracted 50,000 to 60,000 annually in the mid-1950s, according to Vindicator files.
“I didn’t know what to expect” as far as the crowd and parade participants, Hughes said.
The parade, which lasted a little more than an hour, traveled down East Federal Street from Andrews Avenue to the city’s Central Square.
Though 63 units signed up for the parade, 56 actually participated.
The crowd was mostly concentrated on the city’s Central Square with about 700 to 1,000 watching the parade.
Tanya and Jeffrey Hankavich of the West Side brought their 7-year-old daughter, Erika, to the parade.
“It’s nice for the kids to grow up with positive memories,” Tanya said. “This is a nice start. Hopefully, they can build on it. It would be nice to see it grow.”
Erika liked the bands and the dogs at the parade.
Mayor Jay Williams, the parade’s grand marshal, with his wife, Sonja, said the crowd and parade participants were more than he anticipated for an event dormant for close to 20 years.
“For this parade to come back after several years and have this turnout speaks well to the revitalization of Youngstown,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it growing in the future. It’s really overwhelming to see everybody come together for this. I’m touched and I’m impressed.”
Williams described himself as not being a “big parade guy.”
But after Sunday’s event he said, “I’m officially a parade guy. This is really something. I’m looking forward to it next year. You’ll see me in more parades in the future.”
After the parade, the city lit its Christmas tree, a 30-foot blue spruce, on Central Square.
skolnick@vindy.com