Brier Hill
Brier Hill is a neighborhood in
Early history
The area encompassing the Brier Hill neighborhood was originally owned by Youngstown industrialist George Tod, who established a farm on the neighborhood's brier-covered hills around 1801. Tod called the agricultural enterprise Brier Hill. This semi-rural area was transformed irrevocably when
The first
Given its relative isolation from
Current challenges
Like many urban neighborhoods, Brier Hill faces an uncertain future. Beginning in the 1950s, large swaths of the neighborhood were razed to make way for urban renewal projects, including the building of modern expressways. Brier Hill was further depopulated by economic dislocations that came with the decline, and eventual collapse, of Youngstown's steel industry. Today, all that remains of a once-vibrant ethnic enclave is the ITAM Post (Italian-American War Veterans' Club), a bandstand, Modarelli's Salumeria, and the memorial wall.[10] The ground floor of the ITAM Post was once the site of the Forde family butcher shop, owned and operated by Italian immigrants Frank and Catherine Forde (Fiordilisi).[11] The structure's second floor served as the Fordes' residence, where they raised eight children. A concrete marker on the building's facade features the inscription, "Forde 1921".
Other Italian enclaves
Although many neighborhoods and communities in the Youngstown area had large Italian-American populations—including
Pizza
The neighborhood was the birthplace of "Brier Hill pizza", a home-style recipe with origins in the
Neighborhood progress
Local activists from the Pro-Yo Party and the
Notable residents
- James Farragher, Notre Dame football team coach (1902–1903)
- Jack Scheible, Major league baseball player (1893–1894)
- David Tod, Civil War governor of Ohio (1862–1864)
See also
Other Italian Neighborhoods in NE Ohio:
- Little Italy, Cleveland
- Lowellville, Ohio
References
- ISBN 1884687415.
- ^ a b Trolio 2004, p. 203.
- ISBN 9780936369235.
- ISBN 978-0-7006-1292-5.
- ISBN 9780898659443.
- ^ Trolio 2001, p. 11.
- ^ Blue & Jenkins 1995, p. 37.
- ^ Linkon & Russo 2002, pp. 32–33.
- ^ a b Trolio 2001, p. 12.
- ^ Trolio 2001, pp. 13–14.
- ^ "Fiordolisi Family". family.webshots.com. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
- ^ Trolio 2001, pp. 105–108.
External links
- City of Youngstown (official site)
- Youngstown 2010 Plan (official site) - includes Neighborhood Maps & Demographics