Cafaro fetes the fall with fireworks
Thirty years ago, a talented Midwestern musician from Minneapolis released an album called “Purple Rain” that spent 24 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard record charts.
Prince Rogers Nelson’s colorful phrase then became a movie and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Everyone knew the song, and its title became imbedded in the American consciousness.
Some 25 years ago, a Midwestern businesswoman from Niles, Ohio, named Phyllis Cafaro created an event that honored the onset of the autumn on the first weekend of November. It didn’t win any awards, but the title “November Rain” resonates with folks in the Youngstown-Warren Metro, who continue celebrate fall at the Cafaro Company’s Eastwood Mall in Niles.
This year’s installment took place at Eastwood last Saturday, kicking off in the afternoon with Family Fun Day in the mall’s center court. It featured a magic show along with Achievement Youth Market Day, at which young entrepreneurs sell their goods and services.
The Pre-Party started at 6:30 in the parking lot of the gigantic property (3.4 million sq. ft.) with a live music event featuring Youngstown’s House band.
At 9:00 came the crowd-drawing culmination of the event: Fireworks!
“In November, it’s been several months since anyone’s seen fireworks, so it always brings a lot of people to the property,” said Cafaro’s co-president (and Phyllis’s son) Anthony Cafaro, Jr. “All the restaurants are full.”
“It all started when a local radio station chain approached my mother and proposed the idea of sponsoring a fireworks show and synchronizing it to music that would play on one of the group’s stations,” said Cafaro. “My mom ran with the idea and expanded on it. In the ensuing years, she and our marketing team have made it a day-long event that includes all kinds of entertainment.”
And decades later, Phyllis Cafaro still captains the event as VP of marketing at Cafaro.
Cafaro Company owns and operates 44 malls and shopping centers, mostly in secondary markets in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Washington, and Oregon.
