Sunday, August 22, 2010
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The 19th annual Brier Hill Italian Fest in Youngstown is underway with plenty of music and food.
Brier Hill Italian Fest brings back pleasant memories
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
For some, the annual Brier Hill Italian Fest is a homecoming — a chance to catch up with old friends from the neighborhood.
For others, the festival is a great place to enjoy food and live entertainment.
The 19th annual festival, which began Thursday, is open for its last day today from noon to midnight.
The event takes place each year on Calvin and Victoria streets.
The area is lined with those selling Italian food, other vendors and games. In the heart of the area is a stage on which numerous bands perform music during the festival.
Mark and Patty Stiegler of Austintown attended the festival Saturday with Breanna, their 19-month-old daughter. This is the third time the couple has come to the festival and the second visit for their daughter.
“I like the food, the music and being together with friends and family,” said Patty, whose father grew up in the Brier Hill neighborhood.
Gene and Nancy Ianazone of Austintown attended their first Brier Hill Italian Fest on Saturday.
“We like it, particularly the music and all of the food,” Nancy Ianazone said.
Richard McGuire, raised in Brier Hill and now a Cornersburg resident, has been to nearly every one of the annual festivals.
“I see people from the neighborhood one time a year,” he said. “It’s a great reunion for me. I love every minute of it.”
Ron Hall of Painesville, named the festival’s 2010 Man of the Year, said he comes back every year to catch up with longtime friends.
“It’s a great bunch of people, and I always have a great time,” said Hall, who grew up in Brier Hill. “I love to see my old friends, my classmates, who I see each year.”
Brier Hill once was known as the city’s “Little Italy” and is the site of Youngstown’s first Italian settlement, said Claire Maluso, one of the festival’s founders and organizers.
It’s also the birthplace of Brier Hill pizza, made with thick Italian sauce, bell peppers and Romano cheese rather than mozzarella.
Brier Hill thrived around the turn of the 20th century because of the nearby industrial plants, primarily steel, iron and coal.
In the 1950s, portions of the neighborhood where taken by the city for urban-renewal projects, including the construction of expressways. When the city’s industrial base collapsed in the 1970s, many of those in Brier Hill moved away.
Brier Hill is slowly making a comeback with V&M Star investing $650 million for an expansion project across U.S. Route 422 from the location of the festival, Maluso said.
“This could stimulate this area,” she said.