Sad? Nay, Pathetic

[Towntalk]

During the 20's, 30's and 40's, Youngstown had three sports arena's not including the minor league baseball parks, and we had two of them ... Wright Field and the one at Idora Park.

[Towntalk]

  Even the Tod Hotel; the Ohio Hotel; and the Youngstown Hotel had dancing to orchestra's in their ball rooms weekly.

[northside lurker]

Yes, it's sad that we Americans have--generally--turned our backs on our cities.

[Towntalk]

In browsing over the old editions of the Vindicator one is amazed at the number of big events that occurred in downtown Youngstown at the theaters, sports arenas, and ball rooms the year around ... big name orchestras ... Broadway shows ... Opera ... Operetta's  ... professional boxing and wrestling.

Today we're lucky if  a small handful of events take place in a year but back then it seemed that a month didn't go by that there weren't big events at the Palace; the Park; Stambaugh Auditorium; The Elms Ball Room and or Idora Park.

When big bands that had their own radio programs played Youngstown it was not unusual for either WFMJ or WKBN to be the station that would feed the programs to the networks for national airing.

It's really pathetic that those days are lost to us.