Exit, stage left, or right, or ...

I wonder if there's any hidden goodies amidst the rubble of the former Agora in downtown Youngstown, which is in the process of being demolished.

The one time nightclub, housed in the State Theater building, is legendary for the rock bands it attracted in the 1970s and early 1980s, such as the Police, Rush, Billy Squier and Alice Cooper.

The Agora vanished in the early 1980s, falling prey to the economic hard times of Black Monday and the changing tides of the music industry brought on by MTV, and the building itself has been vacant for longer than I can remember.

Yet I see the gaping hole in the back of the building and the stage, which can be seen from the Records Room at the Police Department, and it brings me back to childhood, listening to WSRD and the commercials for the shows there. I always wondered what people did there -- it always seemed like fun.

But I've never been inside the place, which will be part of the new Youngstown Technology Center. And the first time I wrote about it was when some guy tied one on at a bar down the street a few years back, somehow got in the building, and fell from the balcony, putting himself into intensive care with a massive head wound.

I see the stage and I wonder of the untold stories of the Agora. The building may be reduced to dust in some landfill and its steel cut up for scrap. But the symbol of a lost time in Youngstown will always be there, at least whenever the Wizard theme is played somewhere.