"Dominic Gatta vs. Phil Kidd"

[Youngstownshrimp]

With Dooney's closing, Cafe Cimento, Lemon grove teetering.  Looks like more work needs to be done to bring in more businesses for downtown.  I forsee more innovators with energy revenue displacing the leftist with hardcore capitalism.

[Towntalk]

Wasn't this topic discussed in another thread or two? I shant go into any details here, but refer you back to the posts when the news broke that the Cedars was closing downtown and moving to the west side on Steel Street.



On December 6, 2012 I started a thread ... Goodbye Cedars.


http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/dec/08/owner-plans-to-shutter-cedars/

[Youngstownshrimp]

IMHO , Saada and Tommy were Cedars and when they bowed out, no one could fill their shoes.
This is all I will say, anything else must be answered by their family.  It is water under the bridge already.  What 's the matter with the lemon grove, not hippy enough?

[northside lurker]

Westsider,
Cedar's could not have been saved thus the closing.

Why not?  Was the space already spoken for by some other tenant?  Was Cedars unable to afford the lease terms for the soon-to-be renovated space?

[Why?Town]

"Like a Rollin Stone...."

[Youngstownshrimp]

Westsider,
My company Ohio Land Management manages Saada Simon's vacant land, I believe our general counsel and us know more about Cedars than many who guess.  Cedar's could not have been saved thus the closing.  Of course if some here had better ideas and action to manage a reorganization of the downtown icon, I would have loved to see any effort.  But as with many of the remnants in Youngstown, I have this song to sing:
"How does it feel? How does it feel to be on your own, no direction known, like a complete unknown." 

[stewie]

Im pretty sure it was nothing against you shrimp personally but be wise your version of aquaculture was t so much aquaculture as it was laying waste to the land and leaving it looking like Iraq. Just like the timbering illegally, not paying taxes, not following city ordinances. Is that enough? Or do you need more?

[Towntalk]

westsider ... vertually every man who made Youngstown a great city was a developer in one area or another that accomplished their goals with their own money and the money that private investors chipped in (investors) ... the Tod's; the Wicks; the Andrews'; and many more.

[Towntalk]

I'm sure that Rick already knows this, but for those who don't here's a history lesson.

Besides his political career, George Tod, the father of David Tod eventually went bankrupt and would have lost his farm/homested had it not been for David stepping in and paid off his fathers debt.

I open with this to point out that David Tod was not born into wealth, but earned every penny he had.

Coal was found on the property and David set about mining that coal which turned out to be high quality, and was shipped to Cleveland.

Tod's next step was to secure partners to build a railroad that could be used to deliver his coal cheaper than what he was paying.

Out of these transactions ultamately came the Brier Hill Iron and Steel Company.

Vision and hard work was what made David Tod ... the willingness to take risks ... it wasn't easy ... it wasn't handed to him on a silver platter ... and there were no government grants for him to take advantage of.

We need folks like David Tod and Chauncey Andrews who was also a self made man that had nothing handed to him, and not the Phil Kidd's ofthis world that depend on government handouts.

[northside lurker]

While I applaud the work Mr. Gatta is doing in Youngstown, he is just a real estate developer.  They are common in most cities.

As for gentrification, I can see where those who aren't happy about it are coming from, but I don't believe Cedars was a good example of gentrification in action.  I believe they--Cedars--could have negotiated their continued existence at their former location.

[Rick Rowlands]

I have heard many of the younger Youngstowners talk about gentrification as it it is something bad and to be avoided.  Gentrification is simply the influx of money into an area, or more correctly the RETURN of money to an area.  Downtown Youngstown exuded money and wealth at one time, then it was pushed out.  Now it is trying to push its way back in.  Why anyone would prefer the run down Youngstown of the past to a wealthy Youngstown of the future is beyond me. 

[Youngstownshrimp]

Towntalk, I admire your wisdom.  Kidd rents from Gatta.
The word the hipsters are using is "gentrification."
Interesting also to see V2 pummeling the Lemon Gove.  V2 are serious businessmen, Lemon Grove.........I leave that one for Yins.

[Towntalk]

Mr. Gatta sounds like the 21st century version of the late David Tod, a man of vision, a Democrat that rose to be Governor at one of the most critical points in American history, an industrialist and railroad builder. Phil Kidd and his ilk can never understand what drives men like Todd and Gatta, and it wouldn't suprise me if he actually fears Mr. Gatta, and what it could mean to Youngstown.

[Youngstownshrimp]

Around eight years ago Phil Kidd hit the Youngstown scene with his "Defend Youngstown" and was immediately propelled into the downtown scene and accepted as the defacto new leader of the new generation that was to save Youngstown.  Many of his generation and others like myself, felt with the new vibrant Jay Williams and community organizing Youngstown was being saved.  I jumped in quickly and brought outdoor movies to Youngstown and invested scarce money into acquaculture on the eastside.  I learned shortly after, that this generation at least in Youngstown, did not want capitalist, did not want free enterprise, they had another idea.  Kidd told me during my shrimp farming ordeal, we want aquaculture, but we do not want YOU doing it, I never understood this until now.  Their agenda was and is community organizing, sounds good, but has turned out to be a socialist way to grab power, period.
I was at V2's for a meeting and saw Dominic Gatta, he lost weight and I we joked about both of us losing pounds as we always delve into construction in the summers.  He with the new Cedars project and I building and restoring an 1835 structure in Poland.  Like I was with Kidd, I look to the new generation to continue making our community better.  Dominic by far is the real deal, he is the brain drain returning to Youngstown, he exudes free enterprise with out a one sided subsidy, he will help bring back Youngstown, one brick at a time. 
Things in Youngstown are clearer to me today and for you.  We see now what community organizing and nonprofits that really are about creating internal high paying jobs at the expense of the taxpayer, are about that and control.  This FrackFree Youngstown defeat is the turning point wherein free enterprise and the conservative democrats take back the City.  Like our forebears in Ohio, we are Industrialist, we are Capitalist and now we are energized by our new found energy.