YOUNGSTOWN – Alice Raful Lev, passed away on Dec. 14, 2016, and she was born on Dec. 22, 1925, in Akron, to Joseph and Molly Raful. She was the second of three children, having an older brother, Robert Raful, and a younger sister Carol Tager. The family had movie theaters in Cleveland and then Newton Falls, where she spent most of her childhood.
About 1941, the family moved to Youngstown, where the family built and opened the Newport Theater, a state of the art theater on the south side of Youngstown. Alice spent her senior year in Youngstown and graduated from Boardman High School. In Youngstown, there was a large Jewish population and it was there that she was able to meet and date some Jewish men for the first time, including her future husband, Irving.
Not really at ease with the country club life-style of many housewives, Alice got involved in a place where she felt she could make a difference, public service, and fighting for the rights of the disadvantaged.
After a lifetime of public service, in 1988, Alice was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame as a “community organizer and advocate for social justice.” She joins the ranks of other great Ohio women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gloria Steinem, Annie Oakley, and Doris Day. The following is from their website.
“Alice Lev’s lifelong commitment to social justice has benefitted disadvantaged persons, women and minorities on the national, state and local levels. She was a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission Advisory Board and helped establish the Minority Business Division of the Ohio Department of Development.
Mrs. Lev became executive director of the Youngstown Area Development Corporation, a minority business and community development agency, in 1972. Previously, as the associate director of the Youngstown Fair Housing Committee, she helped author and secure passage of Youngstown’s Fair Housing law and served with the Statewide Fair Housing Association to secure a State Fair Housing law. Her work focused on developing low income, subsidized housing throughout Ohio, especially for persons who have a mental illness.
She has served on the NAACP board, the Jewish Community Relations Council, Urban League, National Organization for Women and the Ohio and Youngstown Peace Councils. Alice was active on countless community organizations. She was a member of the Mahoning County Democratic Central Committee and was the chairman of the Ohio Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action.
Mrs. Lev, a licensed social worker, is a strong force for social justice, racial harmony, political activism and equal opportunity for all.
In her later years, it was impossible to walk along Federal Street in downtown Youngstown with Alice without many people coming up and thanking her for helping them get their first job, changing their life, loaning them money when in need, or many other things. Throughout her life, Alice had always tried to help people, taking her big small town heart out in the world and doing what good she could whenever it was possible.
Alice is survived by her husband Irv; sons Steve Lev and Doug Lev; daughter Roslyn Lev Malloy and her husband, Chris; grandchildren Stacie Tomasello and husband Jim, Stephanie Shanholtzer and husband Bobby, Yair Lev and wife Bari, and Yael Lev and her husband, Yinon; and six great-grandchildren, Joey, Sammy, Emma, Andrew, Ryan and Anat.
Services will be held at the Shriver Allison Funeral Home, 292 Madison Ave. in Youngstown, on Monday, Dec. 19. Calling hours are at 10 a.m. and services starting at 11 a.m. There will be a private internment.
In an ad that ran on page 4 of the Sunday edition of the Youngstown Vindicator for April 5, 1908, it claimed to have 4000 seats. This ad must be questioned as to its seating capacity since to hold that many people would have made the Lyric the largest theater in Youngstown, and there is no evidence of a theater that size at that location, so if anyone might have documentation that states the seating capacity of the Lyric it would be welcomed.
In the September 5, 1926 edition olf the Youngstown Vindicator is an ad for “Paramount Week” in Youngstown and one of the theatres listed in the ad that would be showing only Paramount movies was the Liberty Theatre in Hubbard, Ohio. Can anyone tell us any thing about this theater, it’s addressw in Hubbard etc.?
UPDATE – Good news, the Uptown did not sustain any damage from the fire, and the new owner was in there checking over everything to see if it could be brought back to life.
There was a major fire that destroyed a couple of the buildings next to the Uptown Theater and no doubt there was smoke and water damage to the theater considering the fact that it took the fire departmant several hours to get it out. No doubt that considering the fact that no one is doing anything with the theater, that it will be placed on the list of buildings to be demolished.
The man directly behind Mother was Jack Carron, a television and movie actor friend of the family who was the MC. Because there was a movie also shone that night, the screen was left down, but the stage was large enough to do the show in front of the main curtin. It played to a sold out house, and the station taped the show for rebroadcast at it’s normal time slot.
Even the Mahoning County Commissioners were forced to close the County Annex building that was near the Uptown because of the crime problem on Market Street.
This was the last Market Street theater on a street that was a destination for entertainment up to the 1970’s. The Uptown would stop showing movies and became home to Easy Street Productions a professional theatrical group that specialized in musicals, but as Market Street started to deteriorate and become a war zone of crime, even the Uptown was forced to abandon the Uptown Theater and move all its shows to Powers Auditorium.
What was so ironic was the fact that there were three “Adults Only” movie theaters before an angry dancer put the New Park Theater to the torch, but the city only targeted the Palace Adult Theater. Before it opened on Market Street, it was located on Vindicator Square until the Vindy put pressure on the city to shut it down because it didn’t want it’s male employees frequenting the theatre yet it gladdly accepted the money that the ads cost.
This theater is now closed.
http://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/grove-city-theater-closed-for-repairs-this-weekend/1187577881
The Opera House Grand Opening –October 10, 1897 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Zg1IAAAAIBAJ&sjid=34AMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6679%2C3178620
http://www.vindy.com/news/2018/feb/07/robins-theatre-renovators-tout-potential/
Ads from the 1889 newspaper show that the Bijou at 4 West Federal was open in 1889. SEE PHOTOS.
It was located on the corner of West Federal and Hazel Street.
In 1913 the building this theater was in was demolished and the Liberty/Paramount replaced it.
The Belmont Theatre while a movie theater was able to have live stage shows. SEE PHOTO SECTION FOR AD.
YOUNGSTOWN – Alice Raful Lev, passed away on Dec. 14, 2016, and she was born on Dec. 22, 1925, in Akron, to Joseph and Molly Raful. She was the second of three children, having an older brother, Robert Raful, and a younger sister Carol Tager. The family had movie theaters in Cleveland and then Newton Falls, where she spent most of her childhood.
About 1941, the family moved to Youngstown, where the family built and opened the Newport Theater, a state of the art theater on the south side of Youngstown. Alice spent her senior year in Youngstown and graduated from Boardman High School. In Youngstown, there was a large Jewish population and it was there that she was able to meet and date some Jewish men for the first time, including her future husband, Irving.
Not really at ease with the country club life-style of many housewives, Alice got involved in a place where she felt she could make a difference, public service, and fighting for the rights of the disadvantaged.
After a lifetime of public service, in 1988, Alice was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame as a “community organizer and advocate for social justice.” She joins the ranks of other great Ohio women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gloria Steinem, Annie Oakley, and Doris Day. The following is from their website.
“Alice Lev’s lifelong commitment to social justice has benefitted disadvantaged persons, women and minorities on the national, state and local levels. She was a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission Advisory Board and helped establish the Minority Business Division of the Ohio Department of Development.
Mrs. Lev became executive director of the Youngstown Area Development Corporation, a minority business and community development agency, in 1972. Previously, as the associate director of the Youngstown Fair Housing Committee, she helped author and secure passage of Youngstown’s Fair Housing law and served with the Statewide Fair Housing Association to secure a State Fair Housing law. Her work focused on developing low income, subsidized housing throughout Ohio, especially for persons who have a mental illness.
She has served on the NAACP board, the Jewish Community Relations Council, Urban League, National Organization for Women and the Ohio and Youngstown Peace Councils. Alice was active on countless community organizations. She was a member of the Mahoning County Democratic Central Committee and was the chairman of the Ohio Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action.
Mrs. Lev, a licensed social worker, is a strong force for social justice, racial harmony, political activism and equal opportunity for all.
In her later years, it was impossible to walk along Federal Street in downtown Youngstown with Alice without many people coming up and thanking her for helping them get their first job, changing their life, loaning them money when in need, or many other things. Throughout her life, Alice had always tried to help people, taking her big small town heart out in the world and doing what good she could whenever it was possible.
Alice is survived by her husband Irv; sons Steve Lev and Doug Lev; daughter Roslyn Lev Malloy and her husband, Chris; grandchildren Stacie Tomasello and husband Jim, Stephanie Shanholtzer and husband Bobby, Yair Lev and wife Bari, and Yael Lev and her husband, Yinon; and six great-grandchildren, Joey, Sammy, Emma, Andrew, Ryan and Anat.
Services will be held at the Shriver Allison Funeral Home, 292 Madison Ave. in Youngstown, on Monday, Dec. 19. Calling hours are at 10 a.m. and services starting at 11 a.m. There will be a private internment.
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In an ad that ran on page 4 of the Sunday edition of the Youngstown Vindicator for April 5, 1908, it claimed to have 4000 seats. This ad must be questioned as to its seating capacity since to hold that many people would have made the Lyric the largest theater in Youngstown, and there is no evidence of a theater that size at that location, so if anyone might have documentation that states the seating capacity of the Lyric it would be welcomed.
In the September 5, 1926 edition olf the Youngstown Vindicator is an ad for “Paramount Week” in Youngstown and one of the theatres listed in the ad that would be showing only Paramount movies was the Liberty Theatre in Hubbard, Ohio. Can anyone tell us any thing about this theater, it’s addressw in Hubbard etc.?
Here is an interesting link about the Warner Brothers life in Youngstown, Ohio.
http://ohiowins.com/warner-bros/
UPDATE – Good news, the Uptown did not sustain any damage from the fire, and the new owner was in there checking over everything to see if it could be brought back to life.
There was a major fire that destroyed a couple of the buildings next to the Uptown Theater and no doubt there was smoke and water damage to the theater considering the fact that it took the fire departmant several hours to get it out. No doubt that considering the fact that no one is doing anything with the theater, that it will be placed on the list of buildings to be demolished.
If I’m not mistaken, the movie that was running at the time was “Make Believe Ballroom”.
The man directly behind Mother was Jack Carron, a television and movie actor friend of the family who was the MC. Because there was a movie also shone that night, the screen was left down, but the stage was large enough to do the show in front of the main curtin. It played to a sold out house, and the station taped the show for rebroadcast at it’s normal time slot.
Beside being a first run house, the Lyric also booked stage shows. My Mother did her last broadcast from the stage of the Lyric.
Like the Lyric, the Roxy ran first run movies and an occassional stage show between movies.
Does anyone have any photos of the Andre Rieu concert at the Radio City Music Hall?
Does anyone have any photos that they can share of when Andre Rieu and his orchestra performed at the Radio City Music Hall?
Even the Mahoning County Commissioners were forced to close the County Annex building that was near the Uptown because of the crime problem on Market Street.
I meant to say that Easy Street Productions was forced to abandon the Uptown Theater…
This was the last Market Street theater on a street that was a destination for entertainment up to the 1970’s. The Uptown would stop showing movies and became home to Easy Street Productions a professional theatrical group that specialized in musicals, but as Market Street started to deteriorate and become a war zone of crime, even the Uptown was forced to abandon the Uptown Theater and move all its shows to Powers Auditorium.
What was so ironic was the fact that there were three “Adults Only” movie theaters before an angry dancer put the New Park Theater to the torch, but the city only targeted the Palace Adult Theater. Before it opened on Market Street, it was located on Vindicator Square until the Vindy put pressure on the city to shut it down because it didn’t want it’s male employees frequenting the theatre yet it gladdly accepted the money that the ads cost.