America250, Historic Preservation

As we continue to celebrate America’s semiquincentennial, we look back at an important development in the country’s relationship to its historic and architectural history.  

The disastrous demolition of the original Pennsylvania Station in New York City in 1963 erased one of the great architectural wonders of the United States. It also galvanized a movement that led to the birth of National Preservation Week (now Preservation Month) in 1973. Every May, heritage groups, historical societies, and everyday citizens celebrate the country’s architectural, historical, and cultural heritage.  

Here in the Mahoning Valley, we have numerous examples of historic structures that have been saved for posterity.  

The neoclassical Stambaugh Building was built in 1907 in downtown Youngstown. Designed by Albert Kahn—who would later design Henry Ford’s famed River Rogue complex in Dearborn, Michigan—the Stambaugh quickly became a jewel of the central business district. Eight-stories tall and clad in white terra cotta, it came to house the corporate headquarters of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company.  

By the early 2000s, the building was nearly vacant, and windows were falling out of their sills to the street below. In 2012, the building was purchased by the NYO Property Group, and $32 million was invested in rehabilitating the building, which opened as a 125-room DoubleTree Hotel in 2018. The American Institute of Architects (AIA OHIO) gave the project a Merit Award that same year.  

For over four decades, the palatial Robins Theater in downtown Warren sat vacant. It had opened to wide acclaim in the 1920s. A showcase of Italian Renaissance and Adam style architecture, it could seat 1,100 patrons on the floor and 400 more in the balcony. The brainchild of the Robins family of Trumbull County, who bought the first theater the Warner brothers ever opened in 1907; it became one of the most architecturally significant theaters in the Mahoning Valley. 

A victim of suburbanization and the popular drive-in theaters that opened in the post-war years, the Robins shuttered in 1974. A series of aborted efforts to rehabilitate the theater were made over the next several decades. In 2017, Downtown Development Group purchased the property and began a $6 million renovation of the original structure. The grand reopening took place in January 2020. Since then, it has become a popular destination for concerts and other live performances. In 2023, the theater celebrated its centennial.  

These are two great examples of historic buildings of note that have been saved in the Mahoning Valley over the years. America’s two hundred and fiftieth anniversary is a perfect time to celebrate them and the legacy of the preservation movement.