Festivalgoers walk up Victoria Street with St. Anthony Church in the background. Staff photo / Guy Vogrin

YOUNGSTOWN — For 30 years, people have been flocking to a little neighborhood on the upper North Side to meet old friends and remember the glory years of Youngstown.

One bartender at the ITAM Club at the corner of Victoria and Calvin streets, the heart of the Brier Hill Italian Festival, said when telling patrons to use cash only that this event brings people back to “the 1930s, maybe the 1940s.”

The festival ends its four-day run today with a full schedule of bands, lots of Italian-style food, music, dancing, fun, bocce games and laughter.

Dominic Modarelli, whose late father Dee Dee started the festival in the early 1990s, said the festival doesn’t have any special events, but tries to honor the traditions started by their grandfathers and grandmothers. The feast honors a once-thriving neighborhood long after the steel mills had left Youngstown and many had left the Brier Hill neighborhood for the suburbs and places beyond.

One person who stayed was Don Ambrose, 88, who moved to 335 Calvin St. when he was 4 and then returned to the home when he got married 16 years later. He has been there ever since with his wife, Sandra, who are marking their 68th anniversary today. Ambrose said the neighborhood with fewer homes is a lot quieter than Brier Hill’s heyday when many Italian immigrants tried to find fortune and security for their families by working in the nearby Brier Hill works of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and the Ohio Works of U.S. Steel. Both mills, which closed in the early 1980s, were just a short walk down the Burlington Street hill.

“This was and is the best neighborhood in Youngstown,” Ambrose said as he sat on a bar stool at the ITAM Club holding court for a few early festival attendees on Saturday.

Ambrose worked in the mills for a few years before working for the Youngstown City Water Department for over three decades.

“I was supposed to be a troubleshooter, but really was a troublemaker,” Ambrose laughed as he described his job working for the city.

He remembers the neighborhood when the kids played games in the street, pitching pennies and playing poker.

“Yes and I remember every Friday, the smell of pizza and bread being made. There’s lots of good memories,” Ambrose said.

FIRST TIMERS

Enjoying the festival for the first time were Karl Eberle of Howland and Margie Lazzio of Mineral Ridge. The two both moved back to the Mahoning Valley in the last 10 to 15 years.

Eberle said he moved back to area after running a restaurant n Michigan. He said it was wonderful to see how people come from all over come to renew old acquintances at Mahoning Valley events like the Brier Hill festival.

“This area has something that other parts of the country don’t have. It’s love of high school football and that builds relationships like you see here.”

Lazzio said she was anxious to sample the bracciole (flank steak) sandwich, but came too early, so she settled for some Brier Hill pizza.

“This is great … I guess I will have to wait for another time for my sandwich,” she said.

The Brier Hill pizza, or as Deacon Anthony Falasca termed it “St. Anthony’s Pizza,” is a bit different, opting for romano instead of mozzarella cheese with a sweet sauce.

At the 4 p.m. Mass at St. Anthony of Padua Church up the hill from the festival’s midway, Falasca and Msgr. Michael J. Cariglio saluted the Italian immigrants who came to Brier Hill around the turn of the 20th century.

In his homily, Falasca talked more about the pizza.

“The humble immigrants took a little dough, a thick sauce, some cheese and a pepper or two and made it their bread of life. They used that nourishment to help them focus on the things they had to do, especially loving God and praying,” Falsca said.

Msgr. Cariglio talked about the immigrants’ devotion to St. Rocco, a saint they venerated and prayed to for healing.

“Let us now look to St. Rocco in this time when we face the coronavirus,” Cariglio said as invited the congregation to participate in a procession featuring an 1898 statue of the saint that was housed in the old St. Rocco Church in Brier Hill. “That church was down the hill across 422,” he said.

To put more perspective on the Italian-Americans experiences in Brier Hill, Ambrose — who was nicknamed the mayor of Brier Hill — said the neighborhood was filled with German-Americans when the Italians arrived.

“The Germans left and the Italians started to arrive when the mills opened,” Ambrose said.

PIZZA MAKER

Among the many pizzas available at the festival was the one made at St. Anthony parish.

Ernie Direnzo has been leading the group making St. Anthony pizza in the four ovens in the basement of the nearby St. Joseph the Provider school, located next to St. Anthony Church.

For the festival, Direnzo said he has been waking up at 5 a.m. each morning. By the time the festival ends tonight, he will have made over 1,200 pizzas.

Taking the pizzas to the stand at the festival were St. Anthony parishoners Erich and Diane Kist of Austintown. They were using a golf cart and taking about three dozen pies at a time. By 4 p.m., the hot pepper pizza had sold out.

“We only have the plain left,” said Diane Kist, whose maiden name is Baglieri. Her grandparents lived on Seneca Street.

Ambrose had a theory why the neighborhoold emptied out in the late 1960s and the 1970s.

“Well, first the grandchildren all left for the suburbs like Canfield, Austintown and Boardman, but then you also had those section 8 apartments being built up there, which brought in diversity,” Ambrose said, noting that there is still time to come home.

“I would spell the bartender, but I can’t move like I used to,” Ambrose laughed as he pointed to his cane.

The festival on Victoria and Calvin streets concludes from 1 p.m. to midnight today.

If you go …

WHAT: Brier Hill Italian Fest

WHEN: 1 p.m. to midnight today

WHERE: Calvin and Victoria streets, Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Admission is free

Today

1 p.m. — Lowellville Marching Band

3 p.m. — Jim Frank Combo

3 p.m. — Wine Tasting Contest entries accepted with contest at 4 p.m. and winners announced at 5 p.m.

5 p.m. — Rex Taneri Band

7 p.m. — Del Sinchak Band

9 p.m. — Dom Tocco and Brotherhood