Smoky Hollow is an area of Youngstown that runs along the west side of Crab Creek near the Mahoning River.  It got its name originally because of the smoke-filled air from the Valley Mill of the Mahoning Valley Iron Company.   It was a neighborhood of immigrants from around the world.  In 1910 there were 576 families living in the Hollow: about 20% were Irish and 20% were Italian.  15% came from the United Kingdom, 14% from Eastern Europe, 10% were Jewish, 9% German, and 11% American-born, including 8 African-American families.

This is Smoky Hollow in the words of people who lived there:

You didn’t have to leave the Hollow for anything other than going to a show.  But most of our fun was right in the Hollow.  If you wanted entertainment you went to the beer garden and the barber shop. (Charles Desko)

We got together with the neighbors three or four times a week in the evenings.  I remember the accordion and banjo; the men would play music and we would all dance together. (Lucy Nazarini) 

There were so many young fellows down in the Hollow that you wouldn’t believe me when I tell you that we had a [softball] league only from Smoky Hollow.  We had twelve teams in there. (Fred Quarto)

I came from a Slovak family and a lot of my friends were Italian.  I used to go to their house and see who made the best pizzas, spaghetti, and things like that.  Of course, they would come over the house and eat the traditional Slovak food.  (Charles Desko)

Everyone had a little garden in their backyard.  Not only that, we had chickens and turkeys we raised right in the back yard.  (Howard Pincham) 

My mother at one time had five children and nine boarders in a three-bedroom house.  (Carmella Gaetano) 

When there were recessions and difficult times, everybody was out of work…everybody took care of each other.  (Patrick Ungaro)

How would you describe your neighborhood? Take a survey of your class or neighborhood: from how many different places did their ancestors come?  Can you translate your numbers into statistics and percentages?  To get a better look at these images, go to www.mahoninghistory.org.  Under Education, click on ‘What Do You Know’ for a list of articles.  Then click on the embedded images in an article for a downloadable file.