Contact us by email at interpreting@alsglobal.net or via phone at 1-800-951-5020 for a free estimate on our ASL and CART services.

Trusted CART & ASL Services in Youngstown, OH

American Language Services has been helping businesses and other entities reach the deaf and hard of hearing community for more than 35 years. While in-person interpreting, at one time, was the only option, recent technological advances opened the door to other options. Since we offer full-service Video Remote Interpreting (VRI), this article will be comparing Virtual American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting with Communication Access Real-Time Translation (AKA- Closed Captioning & Real Time Subtitling) known as CART.

 Please note that according to the American Disability Act (ADA) that deaf and hard of hearing community have the legal right to receive full access through the use of ASL and or CART services. The ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and providing ASL interpreters for deaf individuals complies with federal law and promotes equal accessibility.

Some interesting Facts About the City of Youngstown

• Saint Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. According to the 2020 United States Census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. The Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, with a population of 541,243 is the 107th-largest metropolitan area in the United States.
• Youngstown is on the Mahoning River, approximately 58 miles (93 km) southeast of Cleveland and 61 miles (100 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Despite having its own media market, Youngstown is often included in commercial and cultural depictions of both Northeast Ohio as well as the Greater Pittsburgh Region due to these proximities. Youngstown is also the midway between Chicago and New York City via Interstate 80.
• The city was named for John Young, an early settler from Whitestown, New York, who established the community’s first sawmill and gristmill. Youngstown is a midwestern city, falling within a region of America often referred to as the Rust Belt. Traditionally known as a center of steel production, Youngstown was forced to redefine itself when the steel industry in the United States fell into decline in the 1970s, leaving communities throughout the region without any major industry. The city has experienced a decline of over 60% of its population since 1959. Youngstown falls within the Appalachian Ohio region, among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
• Downtown Youngstown has seen tremendous change within the last several years, becoming a center of culture, entertainment and innovation. It is now home to bars, restaurants, and the recently completed Youngstown Foundation Amphitheater. Youngstown’s first new downtown hotel since 1974—the DoubleTree by Hilton—opened in 2018 in the historic Stambaugh Building with first floor commercial space including a restaurant. Several businesses, such as Turning Technologies, an education technology company, are headquartered in Downtown Youngstown.
• Youngstown was named for New York native John Young, who surveyed the area in 1796 and settled there soon after. On February 9, 1797, Young purchased the township of 15,560 acres (6,300 ha) from the Western Reserve Land Company for $16,085. The 1797 establishment of Youngstown was officially recorded on August 19, 1802.
• The area including present-day Youngstown was part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a section of the Northwest Territory that Connecticut initially did not cede to the Federal government. Upon cession, Connecticut retained the title to the land in the Western Reserve, which it sold to the Connecticut Land Company for $1,200,000. While many of the area’s early settlers came from Connecticut, Youngstown attracted a significant number of Scots-Irish settlers from neighboring Pennsylvania. The first European Americans to settle permanently in the area were Pittsburgh native James Hillman and wife Catherine Dougherty. By 1798, Youngstown was the home of several families who were concentrated near the point where Mill Creek meets the Mahoning River. Boardman Township was founded in 1798 by Elijah Boardman, a member of the Connecticut Land Company. Also founded in 1798 was Austintown by John McCollum who was a settler from New Jersey.
• As the Western Reserve’s population grew, the need for administrative districts became apparent. In 1800, territorial governor Arthur St. Clair established Trumbull County (named in honor of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull), and designated the smaller settlement of Warren as its administrative center, or “county seat”. In 1813, Trumbull County was divided into townships, with Youngstown Township comprising much of what became Mahoning County. The village of Youngstown was incorporated in 1848, and in 1867 Youngstown was chartered as a city. It became the county seat in 1876, when the administrative center of Mahoning County was moved from neighboring Canfield. Youngstown has been Mahoning County’s county seat to this day.
• The discovery of coal by the community in the early 19th century paved the way for the Youngstown area’s inclusion on the network of the famed Erie Canal. The Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal Company was organized in 1835, and the canal was completed in 1840. Local industrialist David Tod, who was later Ohio governor during the Civil War, persuaded Lake Erie steamboat owners that coal mined in the Mahoning Valley could fuel their vessels if canal transportation were available between Youngstown and Cleveland. The arrival of the railroad in 1856 smoothed the path for further economic growth.
• Youngstown’s industrial development changed the face of the Mahoning Valley. The community’s burgeoning coal industry drew hundreds of immigrants from Wales, Germany, and Ireland. With the establishment of steel mills in the late 19th century, Youngstown became a popular destination for immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and Greece. In the early 20th century, the community saw an influx of immigrants from non-European countries including what is modern day Lebanon, Palestine/Israel, and Syria. By the 1920s, this dramatic demographic shift produced a nativist backlash, and the Mahoning Valley became a center of Ku Klux Klan activity. The situation reached a climax in 1924, when street clashes between Klan members and Italian and Irish Americans in neighboring Niles led Ohio Governor A. Victor Donahey to declare martial law. By 1928 the Klan was in steep decline; and three years later, the organization sold its Canfield, Ohio, meeting area, Kountry Klub Field.
• The growth of industry attracted people from within the borders of the United States, and from Latin America. By the late 19th century, African Americans were well represented in Youngstown, and the first local congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was established in 1871. In the 1880s, local attorney William R. Stewart was the second African American elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. A large influx of African Americans in the early 20th century owed much to developments in the industrial sector. During the national Steel Strike of 1919, local industrialists recruited thousands of workers from the South, many of whom were Black. This move inflamed racist sentiment among local Whites, and for decades, African-American steelworkers experienced discrimination in the workplace. Migration from the South rose dramatically in the 1940s, when the mechanization of southern agriculture brought an end to the exploitative sharecropping system, leading onetime farm laborers to seek industrial jobs.
• The city’s population became more diverse after the end of World War II, when a seemingly robust steel industry attracted thousands of workers. In the 1950s, the Latino population grew significantly; and by the 1970s, St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church and the First Spanish Baptist Church of Ohio were among the largest religious institutions for Spanish-speaking residents in the Youngstown metropolitan area. While diversity is among the community’s enduring characteristics, the industrial economy that drew various groups to the area collapsed in the late 1970s. In response to subsequent challenges, the city has taken well-publicized steps to diversify economically, while building on some traditional strengths.
• The George Voinovich Center (left) and Mahoning County Children’s Services Center (right)
• Downtown Youngstown has seen modest levels of new construction. Recent additions include the George Voinovich Government Center and state and federal courthouses: the Seventh District Court of Appeals and the Nathaniel R. Jones Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse. The latter features an award-winning design by the architectural firm, Robert A. M. Stern Architects.
• In 2005, Federal Street, a major downtown thoroughfare that was closed off to create a pedestrian-oriented plaza, was reopened to through traffic. The downtown area has seen the razing of structurally unsound buildings and the expansion or restoration of others.
• In 2004, construction began on a 60-home upscale development called Arlington Heights, and a grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed for the demolition of Westlake Terrace, a sprawling and dilapidated public housing project. Today, the site features a blend of senior housing, rental townhouses and for-sale single-family homes. Low real-estate prices and the efforts of the Youngstown Central Area Improvement Corporation (CIC) have contributed to the purchase of several long-abandoned downtown buildings (many by out-of-town investors) and their restoration and conversion into specialty shops, restaurants, and eventually condominiums. Further, a nonprofit organization called Wick Neighbors is planning a $250 million New Urbanist revitalization of Smoky Hollow, a former ethnic neighborhood that borders the downtown and university campus. The neighborhood will eventually comprise about 400 residential units, university student housing, retail space, and a central park. Construction for the project began in 2006
• New construction has dovetailed with efforts to cultivate business growth. One of the area’s more successful business ventures in recent years has been the Youngstown Business Incubator. This nonprofit organization, based in a former downtown department store building, fosters the growth of fledgling technology-based companies. The incubator, which boasts more than a dozen business tenants, has recently completed construction on the Taft Technology Center, where some of its largest tenants will locate their offices.
• In line with these efforts to change the community’s image, the city government, in partnership with Youngstown State University, has organized an ambitious urban renewal plan known as Youngstown 2010. The stated goals of Youngstown 2010 include the creation of a “cleaner, greener, and better planned and organized Youngstown”. In January 2005, the organization unveiled a master plan prepared by Urban Strategies Inc. of Toronto, which had taken shape during an extensive process of public consultation and meetings that gathered input from citizens. The plan, which included platforms such as the acceptance of a reduced population and an improved image and quality of life, received national attention and is consistent with efforts in other metropolitan areas to address the phenomenon of urban depopulation. Youngstown 2010 received an award for public outreach from the American Planning Association in 2007.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 34.60 square miles (89.61 km2), of which 33.96 square miles (87.96 km2) is land and 0.64 square miles (1.66 km2) is water.

• Located in the Cleveland tri-state area, Youngstown is in the Mahoning Valley on the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau. At the end of the last Ice Age, the glaciers left behind a uniform plain with valleys eroded by the Mahoning River crossing the plain. Lakes created by glaciers that dammed small streams were eventually drained, leaving behind fertile terrain.
• Youngstown has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb), typical of the Midwest, with four distinct seasons, and lies in USDA hardiness zone 6a. Winters are cold and dry but typically bring a mix of rain, sleet, and snow with occasional heavy snowfall and icing. January is the coldest month with an average mean temperature of 25.8 °F (−3.4 °C), with temperatures on average dropping to or below 0 °F (−18 °C) on 4.1 days and staying at or below freezing on 43 days per year. Snowfall averages 62.7 inches (159 cm) per season, significantly less than the snowbelt areas closer to Lake Erie. The snowiest month on record was 53.1 inches (135 cm) in December 2010, while winter snowfall amounts have ranged from 118.7 in (301 cm) in 2010–11 to 25.2 in (64 cm) in 1948–49. Springs generally see a transition to fewer weather systems that produce heavier rainfall. Summers are typically very warm and humid with temperatures exceeding 90 °F (32 °C) on 7.7 days per year on average; the annual count has been as high as 40 days in 1943, while the most recent year to not reach that mark is 2014. July is the warmest month with an average mean temperature of 70.5 °F (21 °C). Autumn is relatively dry with many clear warm days and cool nights.
• The all-time record high temperature in Youngstown of 103 °F (39 °C) was established on July 10, 1936, which occurred during the Dust Bowl, and the all-time record low temperature of −22 °F (−30 °C) was set on January 19, 1994. The first and last freezes of the season on average fall on October 10 and May 6, respectively, allowing a growing season of 156 days; freezing temperatures have been observed in every month except July. The normal annual mean temperature is 49.0 °F (9.4 °C). Normal yearly precipitation based on the 30-year average from 1981–2010 is 38.91 inches (988 mm), falling on an average 160 days. Monthly precipitation has ranged from 10.66 in (271 mm) in June 1986 to 0.16 in (4.1 mm) in October 1924, while for annual precipitation the historical range is 54.01 in (1,372 mm) in 2011 to 23.79 in (604 mm) in 1963.
• The 2010 United States Census population estimate was 65,062 people. The Mahoning Valley area has 541,243 residents as of the 2020 census.
• The United States Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey estimated a median household income of $24,006. A 2007 report by CNNMoney.com stated that Youngstown has the lowest median income of any U.S. city with more than 65,000 residents. Between 1960 and 2010, the city’s population declined by over 60%. Youngstown’s vacant-housing rate is twenty times the national average.
• According to the 2010 Census, Youngstown had 26,839 households and 15,150 families. The population density was 755.2/km2 (1958.5/sq mi). There were 33,123 housing units at an average density of 968.5 per square mile (373.4/km2). The city’s racial makeup was 47.0% White, 45.2% African American, 0.4% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 3.3% of some other race, and 3.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.3% of the population. The European ancestry included had 10.8% Italian, 10.8% Irish, 10.0% German, and 4.2% English ancestries. Among the Hispanic population, 5.7% were Puerto Rican, 1.9% Mexican, 0.1% Cuban, and 0.7% some other Hispanic or Latino.
• Records suggest 28.6% of the households had children under the age of 18. Of these, 25.6% were married couples living together, 24.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.6% were non-families. Meanwhile, 37.8% of all households comprised a single person, and 14.5% of households comprised a person over 65 years of age living alone. The average household size was 2.28 and the average family size was 3.02.
• 22.8% of the city’s population was under the age of 18, 10.8% was from age 18 to 24, 24.3% was from age 25 to 44, 26.2% was from age 45 to 64, and 15.8% was age 65 or older. The median age was 38 years old. For every 100 females, there were 96.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95 males.
• In 2012, Forbes.com ranked Youngstown, Ohio 4th among the best cities in the U.S. for raising a family. The article included the city’s schools, current low crime, cost-of-living, and property rates in its decision.
• Despite the impact of regional economic decline, Youngstown offers an array of cultural and recreational resources. Moreover, the community’s range of attractions has increased in recent years. The newest addition is the Covelli Centre, a venue for Tier I Jr. A hockey games, concerts, “on ice” shows, and other forms of entertainment.

The community’s culture center is Powers Auditorium, a former Warner Brothers movie palace that serves as the area’s primary music hall while providing a home for the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. This downtown landmark is one of five auditoriums within the city limits. Ford Recital Hall was built in 2006 as an addition to newly renovated Powers Auditorium. Imposing and neo-classical Stambaugh Auditorium, on the city’s north side, has served for decades as a site of concerts and is often rented for private events. The facility also hosts the Stambaugh Youth Concert Band. Bruce Springsteen, who sang about the decline of Youngstown’s steel industry and its adverse effects on local workers in his ballad “Youngstown”, played at Stambaugh Auditorium on January 12, 1996, as part of his solo Ghost of Tom Joad Tour.

• Oakland Center for the Arts, in the downtown area, is a venue for locally produced plays. This institution is complemented by the Youngstown Playhouse on the city’s south side. The Youngstown Playhouse, Mahoning County’s primary community theater, has served the area for more than 80 years, despite intermittent financial problems. Well known theatrical personalities from the Youngstown area include comedic actor Joe Flynn, screen actress Elizabeth Hartman, singer and Broadway performer Maureen McGovern, and television and screen actor Ed O’Neill.
• The Butler Institute of American Art is on the northeastern edge of the Youngstown State University campus. This institution was established by industrialist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., in 1919 as the first museum in the country dedicated to American art. Across the street from the Butler Institute stands the McDonough Museum of Art, YSU’s University Art Museum and the Mahoning Valley’s center for contemporary art. The McDonough, established in 1991, features changing exhibitions by regional, national and international artists and provides public access to the work of students, faculty and alumni from the Department of Art. The Clarence R. Smith Mineral Museum, also on the YSU campus, is operated by the university’s geology department and housed in a campus building.
• To the immediate north of YSU is the Arms Family Museum of Local History. The museum, housed in a 1905 Arts & Crafts style mansion on the main artery of Wick Avenue, is managed by the Mahoning Valley Historical Society. Once the estate of a local industrialist, the museum maintains period rooms that showcase the original contents of the household, including furnishings, art objects, and personal artifacts. The museum mounts rotating exhibits on topics related to local history. Recently, the museum opened the “Anne Kilcawley Christman Hands-on History Room”. The MVHS Archival Library operates in the estate’s former carriage house, near the back of the site.
• The Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor sits south of the YSU campus on a grade overlooking the downtown area. This museum, owned and operated by the Ohio Historical Society, focuses on the Mahoning Valley’s history of steel production. Other museums include the Children’s Museum of the Valley, an interactive educational center in the downtown area, and the Davis Education and Recreation Center, a small museum that showcases the history of Youngstown’s Mill Creek Park. On the city’s north side the Youngstown Steel Heritage Foundation is constructing the Tod Engine Heritage Park, featuring a collection of steel industry equipment and artifacts. The main exhibit is a 1914 William Tod Co. rolling mill steam engine that was built in Youngstown and used at the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Brier Hill Works. The Tod Engine is one of three remaining rolling mill engines in the United States and is a Mechanical and Materials Engineering Landmark.
• Youngstown’s most popular resource is Mill Creek Park, a five-mile (8 km)-long stretch of landscaped woodland reminiscent of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. Mill Creek Park is the oldest park district in Ohio, established as a township park in 1891. The park’s highlights include the restored 19th century Lanterman’s Mill, the rock formations of Bear’s Den, scores of nature trails, the Fellows Riverside Gardens and Education Center, the “Cinderella” iron link bridge, and two 18 hole Donald Ross golf courses.

Mill Creek Park encompasses approximately 2,600 acres (1,100 ha), 20 miles (32 km) of drives and 15 miles (24 km) of foot trails. Its attractions include gardens, streams, lakes, woodlands, meadows, and wildlife.

• Fellows Riverside Gardens’ popular lookout point offers visitors contrasting views of the area. From the south side, the canopied woodlands overlooking Lake Glacier are visible; from the north side, visitors are presented with a view of downtown Youngstown. The park features two 18-hole golf courses. The North Course is on rolling terrain, while the South Course features narrow, tree-lined fairways. Other features include playgrounds, athletic fields, and picnic areas.
• In 2005, Mill Creek Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. A plaque commemorating this event is near a memorial statue of Volney Rogers, the Youngstown attorney who set aside land for the creation of Mill Creek Park.
• A smaller recreational area called Wick Park is on the historic North side. Wick Park’s periphery is lined with early 20th-century mansions built by the city’s industrialists, business leaders, and professionals during Youngstown’s “boom” years. Stambaugh Auditorium, a popular venue for concerts and other public events, is near the park’s southwestern edge. Another small recreational area called Crandall Park is also on the North side. Crandall Park offers well-maintained and landscaped homes, tree-lined streets, and walkable access to shopping and recreations. Several cemeteries (notably historic Oak Hill Cemetery) and small recreational spaces are scattered throughout the city. Some of those recreational spaces include Homestead Park, John White park, Lynn park, Borts Pool, and the Northside Pool.
• The Youngstown area is served by the Western Reserve Transit Authority (WRTA) bus system, which is supported through Mahoning County property and sales taxes. WRTA, whose main terminal is in the downtown area, provides service throughout the city and into surrounding Mahoning and Trumbull counties. The downtown terminal serves as the Youngstown area’s Greyhound terminal.
• In the vicinity of the WRTA terminal is a former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad station. The historic terminal building has now been converted into a banquet hall, served Amtrak’s Three Rivers as a train station from 1995 to 2005. The local railroads now serve freight trains exclusively.
• The Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport is currently served by three airlines (Allegiant Air, Sun Country Airlines and Via Air, in order of market share), five rental car agencies Alamo, National, Enterprise, Budget, Avis, and has direct non-stop flights to Orlando (Allegiant), Fort Myers (Allegiant), Tampa (Allegiant), Atlantic City (Via Air), Tunica (Via Air, Sun Country), and Gulfport (Sun Country). Additional seasonal service includes flights to Myrtle Beach, SC (Allegiant).
• On June 23, 2016, Uber launched its services in Youngstown, covering all of Mahoning County and most of Trumbull County. Before the launch, Youngstown had been the largest city in the United States that had never had Uber in some capacity.
• Endowed with large deposits of coal and iron as well as “old growth” hardwood forests needed to produce charcoal, the Youngstown area developed a thriving steel industry, starting with the area’s blast furnace in 1803 by James and Daniel Heaton. By the mid-19th century, Youngstown was the site of several iron industrial plants, and because of easy rail connections to adjacent states, the iron industry continued to expand in the 1890s despite the depletion of local natural resources. At the turn of the 20th century, local industrialists began to convert to steel manufacturing, amid a wave of industrial consolidations that placed much of the Mahoning Valley’s industry in the hands of national corporations.
• In the late 1930s, the community’s steel sector again gained national attention when Youngstown became a site of the so-called “Little Steel Strike”, an effort by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a precursor to United Steelworkers, to secure contract agreements with smaller steel companies. On June 21, 1937, strike-related violence in Youngstown resulted in two deaths and 42 injuries. Despite the violence, historian William Lawson observed that the strike transformed industrial unions from “basically local and ineffective organizations into all-encompassing, nationwide collective bargaining representatives of American workers”.
• Between the 1920s and 1960s, the city was known as an important industrial hub that featured the massive furnaces and foundries of such companies as Republic Steel and U.S. Steel. At the same time, Youngstown never became economically diversified, as did larger industrial cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh, Akron, or Cleveland. Hence, when economic changes forced the closure of plants throughout the 1970s, the city was left with few substantial economic alternatives. The September 19, 1977, announcement of the closure of a large portion of Youngstown Sheet and Tube, an event still referred to as “Black Monday”, is widely regarded as the death knell of the old area steel industry in Youngstown. In the wake of the steel plant shutdowns, the community lost an estimated 40,000 manufacturing jobs, 400 satellite businesses, $414 million in personal income, and from 33 to 75 percent of the school tax revenues. The Youngstown area has yet to fully recover from the loss of jobs in the steel sector.
• Youngstown is the site of several steel and metalworking operations, though nothing on the scale seen during the “glory days” of the “Steel Valley”. The city’s largest employer is Youngstown State University (YSU), an urban public campus that serves about 15,000 students, just north of downtown.
• The blow dealt to the community’s industrial economy in the 1970s was slightly mitigated by the auto production plants in the metropolitan area. In the late 1980s, the Avanti, an automobile with a fiberglass body originally designed by Studebaker to compete with the Corvette, was manufactured in an industrial complex on Youngstown’s Albert Street. This company moved away after just a few years. A mainstay of Youngstown’s industrial economy has long been the GM Lordstown plant. The General Motors’ Lordstown Assembly plant was the area’s largest industrial employer. Once one of the nation’s largest auto plants in terms of square feet, the Lordstown facility was home to production of the Chevrolet Impala, Vega, and Cavalier. It was expanded and retooled in 2002 with a new paint facility. However, this region was dealt another blow in early 2019 with the closing of Lordstown Assembly in March 2019.
• The largest industrial employers within the city limits are Vallourec Star Steel Company (formerly North Star Steel), in the Brier Hill district, and Exal Corporation on Poland Avenue. The latter has recently expanded its operations.
• Youngstown’s downtown, which once underscored the community’s economic difficulties, is a site of new business growth. The Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI), in the heart of downtown, houses several start-up technology companies that have received office space, furnishings, and access to utilities. Some Incubator-supported companies have earned recognition, and a few are starting to outgrow their current space. Inc. Magazine rated one such company–Turning Technologies–as the fastest-growing privately held software company in the United States and 18th fastest-growing privately held company overall. To keep such companies downtown, the YBI secured approval to demolish a row of nearby vacant buildings to clear space for expansion. The project will be funded by a $2 million federal grant awarded in 2006. In 2014, the YBI was ranked as the number 1 university associated business incubator in the world by the Swedish UBII (University Business Incubator Index). In 2015, the YBI was the top University Associated Incubator in North America, and came in second to the Dublin Enterprise & Technology Centre, also known as the Guinness Enterprise Centre, in Dublin.
• Extensive coverage of Youngstown’s economic challenges has overshadowed the city’s long entrepreneurial tradition. A number of products and enterprises introduced in Youngstown became national household names. Among them is Youngstown-based Schwebel’s Bakery, which was established in neighboring Campbell in the 20th century. The company now distributes bread products nationally. In the 1920s, Youngstown was the birthplace of the Good Humor brand of ice cream novelties, and the popular franchise of Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream & Yogurt was established there in the 1940s. In the 1950s, Youngstown-born developer Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr. established one of the country’s first modern shopping plazas in the suburban Boardman. The fast-food chain, Arby’s, opened the first of its restaurants in Boardman in 1964, and Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips was headquartered in Youngstown in the late 1970s. More recently, the city’s downtown hosted the corporate headquarters of the now-defunct pharmacy chain store Phar-Mor, which was established by Youngstown native Mickey Monus.
• Youngstown is served by the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County system.
• The Youngstown City School District manages all public education within the city. As of 2007, the school district was engaged in a process of reconfiguration, consolidating existing schools while building some new ones. District high schools once included South, North, Chaney, Rayen, East, Woodrow Wilson, Youngstown Early College, and Choffin Career and Technical Center. This roster has changed; neighborhood schools have been merged to result in just Chaney and East High School, with Youngstown Early College and Choffin Career and Technical Center as district alternatives. Youngstown City School District is part of an “Early College” program, in cooperation with Youngstown State University. This program enables high school students to attend classes on campus and earn college credit
• The Diocese of Youngstown once oversaw more than 20 schools within the city. As a result of dwindling enrollment, only four Catholic schools now operate within Youngstown proper. These include two elementary schools – St. Christine’s and St. Joseph the Provider – and two secondary schools, Ursuline and Cardinal Mooney. Several additional Catholic schools operate in the region which accept Youngstown students.
• Youngstown hosts a small number of private schools. These include Valley Christian School, a nondenominational K-12 school on the city’s south side; Akiva Academy, a progressive K–8 school in the Jewish Community Center; and the Montessori School of the Mahoning Valley, which offers alternative learning environments for students ranging from preschool to eighth grade.
• Youngstown State University, the primary institution of higher learning in the Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area, traces its origins to a local YMCA program that began offering college-level courses in 1908. YSU joined the Ohio system of higher education in 1967. The university consists of six colleges: The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS); The College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM); The Williamson College of Business; The Bitonte College of Health and Human Services; The College of Fine and Performing Arts (FPA), and the College of Education. Once regarded as a commuter school, YSU serves about 13,000 students, many from outside the Youngstown area. The campus is just north of the city’s downtown and south of Youngstown’s historic Fifth Avenue district, a neighborhood of Tudor-, Victorian-, and Spanish Colonial Revival-style homes.
• YSU offers tuition rates that are lower than the average of other public universities in Ohio, at $3,856 per semester for undergraduates. The university’s assets include the Dana School of Music, an All-Steinway school. The Dana School of Music is one of the six oldest continuously operating schools of music in the United States. Youngstown State’s Engineering programs are accredited through ABET, making it one of the best Engineering Schools in the country; many graduates from the school have gone on to become the founders and heads for various Fortune 100 companies.
• Youngstown has enjoyed a long tradition of professional and semi-professional sports. In earlier decades, the city produced scores of minor league baseball teams, including the Youngstown Ohio Works, Youngstown Champs, Youngstown Indians, Youngstown Steelmen, Youngstown Browns, Youngstown Gremlins, and Youngstown Athletics. Local enthusiasm for baseball was such that the community hosted championship games of the National Amateur Baseball Federation throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The area’s minor league baseball teams were supplemented by semi-professional football teams, including the Youngstown Patricians, who won the 1915 championship of the informal “Ohio League” (a direct predecessor to the National Football League), and the Youngstown Hardhats, who competed in the Middle Atlantic Football League in the 1970s and early 1980s. For three seasons, Youngstown was home to the Mahoning Valley Thunder of the now-defunct af2, the minor league for the Arena Football League until 2009 when the franchise ceased operations. Local minor league basketball teams included the Youngstown Pride of the WBA from 1987 to 1992, the Youngstown Hawks of the IBA in 1999, and the Mahoning Valley Wildcats of the IBL in 2005.
• Youngstown has produced many prominent athletes with connections to the city, including former world boxing champions Greg Richardson, IBF lightweight champion Harry Arroyo, College Football Hall of Fame end Bob Dove, Hall of Fame umpire Billy Evans, major league pitcher Dave Dravecky, NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar, NFL Running back Lynn Bowden Jr., IBF cruiserweight champion Jeff Lampkin, WBA lightweight champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, major league manager Jimmy McAleer, WBC and WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, legendary baseball trainer “Bonesetter” Reese, major league outfielder George Shuba, and Heisman Trophy recipient Frank Sinkwich.
• The community has a lengthy tradition of collegiate sports. The Youngstown State University Penguins, a major regional draw, compete in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The Penguins, noted participants in FCS (I-AA) football, play their games at Stambaugh Stadium and enjoy one of the more supportive fan bases. All other YSU athletic teams compete in the Horizon League, which does not sponsor football. The Youngstown State men and women’s basketball teams hold their games at Youngstown State’s Beeghly Center. The teams average about 2,500 fans per game, a number that rose with a new style of play under former Head Coach Jerry Slocum. In addition, the YSU baseball and softball teams have enjoyed local support and success. The baseball team reached the NCAA super-regionals in 2005, and the softball team did so in 2006.
• The Covelli Centre (formally the Chevrolet Centre) was the home of the Youngstown SteelHounds hockey team that played in the Central Hockey League until May 2008. In 2005, the Ohio Redbulls semi-pro football of the United States Football Association (owned by Will Smith) won their first championship.
• Youngstown has produced a large number of boxing champions, including bantamweight Greg Richardson, lightweights Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, Harry Arroyo, and middleweight Kelly Pavlik.

Reference Sources: Kiddle Encyclopedia

Youngstown ASL & CART Language Interpreters

American Language Services is known for our high-quality, In-person and Virtual interpreters, as well as the outstanding client services we provide. We work in 200+ languages including Legal and Medical Certified and Qualified. ASL and CART are the fastest growing languages in Youngstown today a language interpreter can be a very underestimated professional in the world today. There are over 100 languages spoken in the Youngstown Metro area alone. Many of us know one language, and we specialize in one field of study. Our Youngstown Interpreters are fluent in English and at least one other language, and they are knowledgeable in a wide range of specialized fields including legal, medical, technical, manufacturing, and engineering.

A brief history of ASL Interpreting in Youngstown

Most people know that ASL stands for American Sign Language. But not everyone knows that it is a distinct language—not simply an offshoot of American English. Though its beginnings are murky, many believe that ASL originated from a merger of French Sign Language (SLF) and local U.S. sign languages. While ASL and SLF are distinct languages, there are still some similarities between their signs.

What actually is ASL?   ASL a complete, natural language that has the same linguistic properties as spoken languages with grammar however that differs from English. ASL is expressed by movements of the hands and face.  ASL is a language completely separate and distinct from English. It contains all the fundamental features of language, with its own rules for pronunciation, word formation, and word order.  Because of the physical nature of ASL, a two-person team of ASL interpreters is required for assignments longer than 1 hour in duration.

The National Center for Health Statistics claims that 28 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss, though only between two and eight percent of them are natural ASL speakers.  Helping these select individuals translate the audible into the understandable is the job of an ASL interpreter.  If you have ever been to a play, a concert or watched a government briefing, you have probably seen an ASL interpreter signing just out of view.  An interesting side note is that Statista estimates that there are currently around 60,000 active ASL interpreters in the USA.

The Benefits of ASL Interpreting in Youngstown

When it comes to communicating with hard-of-hearing or deaf audiences, there are a few reasons you might want to opt for a Youngstown ASL interpreter over CART services. These include:

• A More Personal Connection: A real person has several advantages over a computer screen. First, human interpreters have an easier time conveying emotion. Second, they are better equipped to point out speakers and assist with pronunciation issues. Finally, an interpreter gives a deaf or hard of hearing person a chance to bond with another person.
• Enhanced Speed: Skilled interpreters can hold pace with even the fastest speakers. Lack of delay makes it easier for deaf and hard of hearing individuals to keep up with the conversation.
• Cost Effective:  While costs range by the type of ASL you need (Legal, medical, business, etc.) and when the assignment is scheduled, the cost off ASL, across the board, is less money than CART.

What Is CART?

While the majority of people know what American Sign Language is, the same cannot be said for Communication Access Real-Time Translation. Often referred to as CART, this communication method for the deaf and hard of hearing is best described as subtitling for live discussions. Unlike ASL, which relies on a professional interpreter, CART services are provided by a well-trained stenographer or transcriptionist. They transcribe anything said and then broadcast the resulting text to a phone, computer, or TV screen.

CART is often seen as a cost-effective and efficient way to ensure everybody can follow along. While often used to help deaf students in the classroom, CART captioning benefits anyone that can read.  Much like ASL interpreting, it can be done both onsite with a physical transcriptionist or remotely with an offsite one.

Why You Should Consider CART for the Youngstown Market

Communication Access Real-Time Translation is growing in popularity due to the following characteristics:

• It Serves a Wider Array of Deaf People: If you do a little math, you will realize that 65 percent of hard-of-hearing people in the USA do not speak ASL fluently. CART makes it so these people can join in on the conversation as well.
• CART Makes It Scalable: While people in the front rows can easily make out what an interpreter is signing, it gets harder as the distance increases. Since captions can be beamed to multiple screens simultaneously, they do not have to factor speaker distance into the equation.
• The Text Provides a Written Record: Having a transcript of everything your professor said would be a godsend come finals. Having a record of a meeting can also provide clarity to all those involved as well. The physical nature of CART recording makes that possible. This ability is one reason so many college students opt for CART over traditional ASL interpreting. 

About American Language Services

Founded in 1985, American Language Services was there to help pioneer the rise in remote ASL interpreting options. Our dedication to quality and client satisfaction in interpreting allowed us to shift from a one-woman agency into one of the most successful language agencies in the world. Our language experts provide ASL & CART interpreting services to people all around the world. Because of our 24/7 availability, you’ll never have to worry about us not being available, on off times, for an assignment.

AML-Global has some of the most impressive linguistic talents in the world. These highly skilled language professionals are recruited, screened, and tested to ensure high-quality work.

Contact us by email at interpreting@alsglobal.net or via phone at 1-800-951-5020 for a free estimate on our ASL and CART services.