A HEART FOR ELLWOOD
Woman works toward downtown renewal
By Eric Poole

It’s been more than 40 years, but Lenore Bazzichi can still reminisce about the heyday of Ellwood City, when there were two movie theaters, dozens of shops and a bustling business district.

“I remember coming home from high school and going to the drugstore and getting cherry Cokes, going to Isaly’s, and getting skyscrapers,” said Bazzichi, 60.

For those who aren’t old enough to remember Isaly’s, skyscrapers were ice cream cones. And, like Isaly’s and drugstore soda counters, there aren’t any in Ellwood City.

While the prospects for bringing back Isaly’s is remote, Bazzichi, who lives just outside the borough line in the Park Gate neighborhood of Wayne Township, is devoted to seeing vitality return to Ellwood City’s Lawrence Avenue business district.

She is a driving force behind the Ellwood City Revitalization group, which is undertaking a comprehensive economic development effort. Part of the project, which will take most of 2008, will include façade improvements and redesigned open spaces.

But, said Bazzichi, all that is merely a building block for the ultimate goal – a renewal along Lawrence Avenue. The idea, she said, is to use the cosmetic improvements to draw new residents and businesses into the borough’s downtown.

“It’s going to be beneficial to the property owners because their buildings will sell, their buildings will rent,” she said.

Over the new few months, Bazzichi will present her “Hidden Treasures” to pretty much any group that will sit still long enough to watch the slide show and head up efforts to raise funds for the project through donations and state grants.
And she said “Hidden Treasures” is more than a title. After living in North America and Europe, she said her hometown’s charms top the list and that the rest of the revitalization group feels the same way.

“We have a heart for Ellwood City,” she said.

In her case, that characteristic was inherited. Bazzichi’s father, Henry, was a long-time booster of the Ellwood City area and a local historian who contributed articles and photographs to the Ellwood City Ledger.
Henry Bazzichi, who died in December 2002 at the age of 89, was known as the honorary mayor of Park Gate and the neighborhood’s park is named in his honor.

While Lenore Bazzichi said her father might not have gotten involved in the political end of the effort, she thinks he would have been pleased to see her work for a renewal of Ellwood City’s downtown district.
“He was more a volunteer, giving blood and things like that,” she said. “But toward the end of his life, he was upset that businesses were leaving town.
“I have had people tell me he’s up in heaven doing a happy dance because he always told me I should get involved in politics.”

 

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