SitemapThe annual holiday parade and Christmas tree lighting in downtown Youngstown has been getting bigger every year, and this year’s event promises to be the best yet.
The five downtown-gateway art projects are the result of the INPLACE project, which was funded by a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by Youngstown State University. Three of the projects have been completed for several weeks. They are a sculpture in front of The Vindicator building; a bus shelter that repurposes a shipping container on East Boardman Street; and a small outdoor stage on North Hazel Street, between Commerce Street and Rayen Avenue. The fourth and fifth projects will make their debut Friday night. A system that will use lighting technology to project messages and art on the south side of the City Hall annex when it’s complete is one. The other is the lighting of the unused concrete railway arch bridge over Mahoning Avenue, just a few blocks west of downtown. The lighting project will use the Stambaugh Building on Central Square as its canvas Friday night. The building is currently being renovated into a Doubletree Hotel. The railroad arch lighting might be the most unusual of the five projects. It was being installed this week. “If all goes well, we’ll have it turned on Friday,” said David Tamulonis, the Boardman native and Youngstown resident who was a principal designer of the project. There will be nine energy-efficient LED lights down the middle of the arch’s ceiling, and continuous LED light strips around both edges, he said. “The lights are amber, dark orange-ish, and will give the effect of a glowing steel furnace,” said Tamulonis, a recent YSU grad who is the marketing coordinator of Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. Tamulonis was part of a group of YSU and Kent State University students who took part in a design effort put together by the McDonough Museum a few years ago. The goal was to find ways to improve the Mahoning Commons neighborhood and create links between downtown and Mill Creek Park. He based it on similar public lighting projects in other cities. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.