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Downtown tree from Brandywine
Photo
A Colorado blue spruce, donated by Craig Tareshawty, owner of Brandywine Apartments, is Youngstown’s downtown Christmas tree. It was cut and brought to Central Square on Thursday.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
skolnick@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
City officials were in a bit of a bind — they needed a Christmas tree for
Central Square in the heart of downtown.
Unlike previous years, no one called offering to provide one.
So city officials went back and looked at the list of potential trees from last year, but most of the ones that interested them were on the side of the street with utility lines and poles, which ruled them out, said Robert Burke, the city’s park and recreation director.
“You don’t want to disrupt power or have an accident,” he said. “The tree has to be on the side of the street without power lines.”
Most of the others on the list were “skinny and scrawny,” Burke said. “We want a full tree. Having a Christmas tree downtown is a very long tradition.”
Early last week, David Sturtz, the city’s forester, went into the office of Brandywine Apartments on Flo Lo Drive in Cornersburg to ask about a Colorado blue spruce on the property that he wanted for the downtown Christmas tree.
“I thought it was a joke,” said Craig Tareshawty, Brandywine’s owner.
Then he realized Sturtz was serious, and agreed to give the city the tree that’s been there for about 50 years.
“It’s the right size and it’s fluffy in the right places,” Tareshawty said. “We can’t have a Charlie Brown tree downtown.”
On Thursday, Sturtz supervised the cutting of the tree, which is 29 feet tall and 18 feet wide in diameter, by the city’s park and recreation staff. As it’s done for years, Diamond Steel Construction Co. of Boardman donated its time and equipment to transport the tree on a flatbed truck and put it up on Central Square.
The tree will be lit at a ceremony after the Dec. 5 Youngstown Holiday Parade that travels along East Federal Street west from Andrews Avenue just past Central Square.
The parade starts at 5:30 p.m. with the lighting ceremony expected at 6:30. That will be followed by pictures with Santa.