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Brier Hill Italian Fest tradition will return
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
There are a lot of ethnic festivals in the Mahoning Valley, but many people call the Brier Hill Italian Fest their favorite.
And for good: It’s the only one that takes place on the streets of a neighborhood that once was a thriving Italian community.
The festival opens Thursday and runs until Sunday at the intersection of Calvin and Victoria streets in the Brier Hill neighborhood on the North Side. Admission is free.
For many regulars, the Brier Hill Fest is about memories, tradition and keeping the bonds of the neighborhood alive.
“Some people who have moved away schedule their vacation around it,” said organizer Dominic Modarelli. “They will call in January and say ‘When is the festival this year?’ because they’re coming in from California.”
The people are part of what makes Brier Hill unique, as festivals go. “People who grew up in that part of town, they come back for one weekend and it’s like a big family reunion. It’s about seeing someone you haven’t seen in years.”
Modarelli is the son of the late Dominic “Dee Dee” Modarelli, who founded the festival, and helped run it until his death in 2009. The Burlington Street bridge, which crosses state Route 711, just a block or two away from the festival, was renamed in honor of the senior Modarelli in 2011.
The late Modarelli owned Kayo’s bar at Calvin and Victoria streets, which later became the ITAM club. He also built the large pavilion across the street, which gets packed with festivalgoers. It includes boccie courts, a dance area and a kitchen and brick oven.
“It used to be a field there,” said Modarelli. “[My father] put in the bocce courts, and then put a roof over it. He was a bricklayer by trade and all the guys in the neighborhood, some were carpenters and electricians, put their time and money in for the club and built the rest. It was a tight- knit group of guys, a dying breed.”
Every year, the festival honors a man of the year. This year, it is Neil Patrone, 80, a Brier Hill native and the son of Lorenzo and Theresa Patrone, who migrated from Italy.
Patrone is a 1955 Rayen School graduate and a member of its undefeated 1954 football team. He went on to attend Youngstown State University.
He married Irene George in 1959 and they had four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Patrone worked at Youngstown Sheet and Tube, United Engineering and the Youngstown Board of Education, from which he retired in 1993.