Here’s to living on Mahoning Valley's Easy Street

December 25, 2011 at 12:08a.m.

Austintown

Margeritta Scardina always wanted to live on Easy Street.

In 1983, Scardina and her husband, Patrick, began developing Easy Street, off Kirk Road in Austintown, said their former daughter-in-law, Patti Hian.

Hian and her then-husband, Robert Scardina, helped develop the street, where fewer than a dozen homes sit back off the road hidden by landscape and trees that evoke the feeling of an easy, laid-back life.

“I found it fascinating to help build that street,” Hian said. “And I think the name is part of the reason [residents] came here.”

Nancy Pauley said living on Memory Lane in Canfield tends to be a conversation starter.

“It’s a very cute name, and everyone I know thinks so,” she said.

Pauley said that when she’s asked if she’s recently recalled any old memories by “taking a stroll down memory lane,” she always replies with, “I literally go down Memory Lane every day.”

“That always gets a chuckle,” she added.

But to others, an unusual street name can have the opposite effect.

Ken Craig of Canfield almost didn’t buy his new home on That’s Life Lane because of the street’s moniker.

Craig said his wife thought the street name was a bit silly, but they realized the idea behind the names in their development, Summer Wind Estates.

“We understand why it’s named like that. It’s a Frank Sinatra theme,” he said.

Craig said That’s Life Lane has grown on the couple.

“We do get a kick out of it,” he said. “We laugh when people say, ‘Your street name is what?’”

The process to name a street is simple: Developers pick the names and submit them to the Mahoning County Planning Commission to verify that there are no name duplications within the same township or municipality.

The commission also could object if a street name is deemed offensive, a representative for the commission said.

Boardman Road Superintendent Larry Wilson said although townships don’t have any jurisdiction when it comes to street names, he and the trustees would object if an offensive name was proposed, “But we’ve never had that happen.”

Wilson said certain street names are targets for thieves.

“Girls’ names are popular, Arlene and others like that. I guess it just depends on who their girlfriend is at the time,” Wilson chuckled.

The township’s most frequently stolen sign is Spartan Drive, off Glenwood Avenue, probably because Boardman’s mascot is the Spartan, he said.

“For a long time, we had to keep replacing that one,” Wilson said.

Boardman Detective Glenn Patton said individuals caught stealing street signs could face charges of vandalism, receiving stolen property, tampering with a traffic sign or device or possession or sale of a traffic-control device.

Hian said Easy Street signs “went like hotcakes” for many years, and before the county took over the duty of replacing stolen ones, she said the family spent hundreds of dollars making sure the street was marked.

“I would no sooner put one up, and it would be gone,” Hian said.