1950s Tux Shop Full of Thousands of Tuxedos Goes Up in Flames

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The Masters Tuxedo company was founded in 1949 by Nicholas B. Masters and Andrew J. Krainock with the opening of the first Masters Tuxedo on East Commerce Street in downtown Youngstown. The shop was small, offering only a minimal selection of 20 tuxedos, but grew quickly into one of the largest tuxedo rental companies in the Midwest.

Abandoned Masters Tuxedo – Youngstown, Ohio

This specific location started its life in 1950 as a bowling alley called Marhill Lanes. The storefront was used as a sporting goods store, with entrance to the bowling alley at the back of the building, leading to the lanes in the basement. It seems that the bowling alley was bought and converted to a Masters store somewhere around 1978. The basement alley was used as secondary storage for tuxedos, and as a workspace full of offices, sewing machines and more. You can barely see the lanes today, as everything remains spread out across the many lanes.

Tuxedos spread across bowling alley lanes

Inside an office

By 1993, the company was bringing in a steady stream of business, and operated 70 outlets over 9 states, as well as the District of Columbia. This year they had been chosen as the official supplier of all formal-wear for Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration. Business was booming for Masters. This was not the first time that Masters would supply suits for an inauguration, as they had supplied suits for the inaugurations of George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan as well.

Snack bar in the basement bowling alley

Mark Jacobson, a Masters employee of 20 years, bought all 3 local Masters stores from the original owners in 1998. The company tried everything to stay afloat, but with further declining population numbers and the continuing collapse of Youngstown’s local economy, all attempts seemed useless. More young people continued to move away from Youngstown, and were also getting married far from the area; this was a major contributing factor to the loss of wedding rentals for the business.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the fall of 2001 with hopes to reorganize and continue operations. Unfortunately, with increased competition from national chains now added to the picture, the shop was eventually closed on September 27, 2002. The closing left 22 employees jobless.

The city obtained ownership of the structure in December 2010 through foreclosure.

A man named Corey Kemp attempted transforming the structure into a certified nursing-assistant training center in 2014. The building was almost demolished in 2013 until he stepped in to invest about $75,000 to rehab the decaying structure. His plans were approved by the city’s Design Review Committee, and had stated that once Kemp had put at least $80,000 of improvement work into the building, it would become his. Kemp had planned to find someone who was able to clean the tuxedos, shoes and all other pieces left behind, and give them away. The last statement made by Kemp was in 2016, when he said that he had planned to add medical-assistant training within the structure. On April 30, 2019 just a few days before the city was going to tear it down, the building was burned. The cause of fire is still unknown, but crews are looking into what could have caused it.

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