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Block watch sponsors annual Lansingville parade
By SEAN BARRON
YOUNGSTOWN
People want- ing to call positive attention to their neighborhoods have a variety of tools at their disposal — organized cleanups and block parties to name a few.
And it doesn’t hurt to toss in the occasional parade.
That was the thinking behind Saturday’s ninth annual Lansingville parade, sponsored by the Lansingville Block Watch organization.
Lansingville is a neighborhood on the city’s South Side, settled largely by Slovak Catholics with Germans and Italians. It was named for John Lansing, is bounded by Campbell Street and Indianola and Poland avenues to the north; Craiger Avenue and Shirley Road to the east; Midlothian Boulevard to the south; and Homestead Street and Gibson Avenue to the west; and was incorporated into the city in the 1880s.
Saturday’s parade began at St. Matthias Church, 915 Cornell Ave., and wrapped up at the former Adams School on Cooper Street. After the event was a community picnic in the school‘s parking lot.
Co-sponsoring the parade and picnic was the Purple Cat, a Lowellville-based agency that, among other things, provides work opportunities for adults with mental and physical challenges.
“It’s a jewel in the city and you build around it,” Patti Dougan, a member of the Seventh Ward Citizens Coalition, said of the parade.
The coalition is a neighborhood association that includes several block-watch groups, Dougan noted, adding that the group performed three area cleanups last month.
Perfect weather greeted the several hundred people who took part in the parade. Participants also enjoyed hot dogs, desserts, clowns and music — and a feeling of unity — during the picnic.
The event, however, was about more than food and dancing: It also represented a microcosm of block-watch groups and others dedicated to affecting positive changes in the Lansingville area and many other city neighborhoods.
One of those with such an ambition is Ken Stanislaw, the Lansingville block-watch group’s president.
Many of the 40 to 50 members of the 14-year-old group make improvements to their area, in part by cutting grass on vacant lots and picking up litter, Stanislaw said. Plans are under way to convert some vacant properties to urban gardens and meadows, he continued.
The former Adams School is to be razed in 2011 and be replaced by memorial gardens, noted Councilman John R. Swierz, D-7th. Fifteen to 18 abandoned houses are set to be torn down in the ward this year, he explained.
The Lansingville block-watch group is one of four such organizations, along with churches, schools, social-service agencies and businesses, that make up the South Avenue Area Neighborhood Development Initiative, Swierz said. The initiative covers a 27-block area, he added.
Also devoted to neighborhood vitality and strength is John Rovnak of Youngstown, a member of the Cambridge-Palmer-Roxbury Block Watch, which covers several neighborhoods east of South Avenue.
Rovnak said his efforts include taking steps to ensure that residents in the block-watch area get to know one another.
“It doesn’t matter if you own or rent; you’re still part of the neighborhood,” Rovnak said during the picnic.
Members also have boarded up vacant eyesores and made other improvements, he continued. Nevertheless, it’s up to homeowners to maintain their properties by taking trash to the curb prior to its pickup, for example, and not allowing it to sit for nearly a week.
“It’s the small improvements that make a difference,” Rovnak added.
The parade was started nearly 10 years ago by Edwin Buday, who lived in the area all of his life and had tremendous community pride, said his son, Jason Buday of Howland.
“My dad and I talked about it and he said, ‘It would be a nice idea if we have a parade,’” recalled Jason Buday, who brought sons Nick, 5, and Alec, 6. “It’s still a nice get-together every year.”