Strouss-Hirshberg; Things That Aren't There Anymore

Youngstown was at the heart of the American industrial revolution in the mid 1800’s. During World War I, more steel came from Youngstown than anywhere else in the world. It’s no wonder, then, that the area was home of some of the best of everything, including department stores. Strouss-Hirshberg and McKelvey’s were the Macy’s and Gimbels of northeast Ohio, and offered to local residents the best of what money could buy.

Strouss will always hold a special place in the heart of this area. It is hard to believe that there are twenty somethings today that haven't heard of it, or go “huh?” when you mention it. I tried doing some research on its history. Believe it or not, it is hard to find. As near as I could figure, the Strouss Hirshberg Company was originally known as D. Theobald and Company. Isaac Strouss clerked there, and eventually bought the store in 1875 with his new partner Bernard Hirshberg. The store was incorporated in 1906.

The Readers Digest version of the life of the company begins in 1947 when it was purchased by May Company and became May Company’s outlet in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The decline of the steel industry and rise of discount department stores marked the end of the Strouss name in the area when May Company merged the Strouss operation with its Kaufmann’s division based in Pittsburgh. The hyphenated name lasted about a year. May Company and Federated Department Stores then merged, and soon Strouss-Kaufmann’s then Kaufmann’s assumed the name Macy’s, the flagship store of the Cincinnati based Federated Department Store chain.

Like other area names with colloquial pronunciations (Campbell pronounced Camel/V-eye-enna rather than Vee-enna), Strouss- Hirshberg was better known as Strouss’s. Any high school English student should know that is grammatically incorrect.

Although there may be a lack of historical information on the internet about the company the impressions in my memory are abundant. My earliest memories are of the traffic at the back of the store that was always congested with delivery trucks, busses, and people dropping off or picking up passengers. “I will pick you up at the rear door of Strouss’s.” It was located across from the Erie RR terminal. My grandmother tells the story about my ne’er do well, happy go lucky uncle who came home one day after he graduated from high school, and announced he wanted to attend Notre Dame University. That very day my grandmother literally took him on the bus to Strouss’s; bought a suitcase; bought him clothes; took him across the street to the Erie Station and stuck him on a train to South Bend, all in the same day. He later became one of the most successful mall developers in America, ironically one of the reasons for the decline of downtown department stores.

My mother was Strouss shopper. I can see the inside of the store like it was yesterday. Back in the day, women wore white gloves, and I remember her dragging me to the glove counter on the first floor where they were kept in drawers behind the counter in beautiful wooden drawers. She would buy elbow length gloves for her formal attire, and mid arm and regular white gloves for everything else.

“Shoes on Three” was another of her favorite spots, with all of the shoes displayed on individual pedestals. Next to the shoe department were hats, with dressing tables with round mirrors located within the department so ladies could try them on. She would head for home loaded with shoe and those wonderful round hat boxes. She kept those hat boxes for years.

Being a child, it was always a treat to visit the toy department on the fifth floor (or second floor depending on what year you gravitate to), and especially Santa Land at Christmas. I was terminally cute in the pictures of me sitting on Santa’s lap taken by legitimate photographers. I remember it being a big surprise one year when they put Santa between the up and down escalators going to the mezzanine from the first floor ala A Christmas Story. Ho Ho Ho!!!

Speaking of the mezzanine, that was where the “Best Buy” department was located. Radios, televisions, stereos…and mostly records…were located on the mezzanine. The record department had those wonderful booths in the back where you could listen to the tunes before making your purchase…or heading to Record Rendezvous across the street to see what else might be available.

My family rarely shopped at McKelvey’s for some reason. Maybe Strouss’s had a wider selection of merchandise because of its affiliation with the May Company. Or maybe it was because I had two aunts that worked there. My Aunt Josephine worked in ladies shoes, and my Aunt Jenny worked in curtains and blinds. Even as late as the 1980’s, when my office was located in the Wick Building, I would go and have lunch with my Aunt Josephine in the employee dining room.

Food was never a problem in Strouss. I learned to eat pecan rolls from the Strouss’s bakery…and those swonderful little orange marmalade rolls my mother would order for special occasions. Strouss’ bakery boxes always indicated a special treat inside. And after a long day of shopping, you could get lunch in the Western Reserve Room…the fancy restaurant…or the grill on the first floor with wonderful malts, hamburgers, and my favorite, chicken croquettes!!

I remember what a big deal the Strouss parking garage was being built with the bridge to the third floor. It was a big deal competing with McKelvey’s Pigeon Hole parking deck. You remember? The cars went up and down an elevator!!!

Strouss’s was the first downtown store to open branch stores. The first was located in the Uptown…then in the Boardman and Austintown Plazas…then in Southern Park and Eastwood Malls. The original branches were opened Monday and Thursday nights…otherwise the stores closed at five.

Then slowly but surely, the downtown Stouss store began its long, slow death spiral. It was one nail in the coffin after the other, as the population patterns shifted to the suburbs, as the steel mills closed down, as discount stores expanded in earnest, as the retail industry consolidated and local brand identification became a quaint relic of the past. First they closed the top two floors, then another floor…then the entire store.

Then the name changes started…and now Strouss is a memory…along with May Company, O’Neils, Higbee’s, Lazarus, Shillito’s, Rike's, and Kaufmann’s.  Now we got Macy’s.

Somehow it’s just not the same. But one thing they can’t take away is the memory of my mother buying arm length white gloves in the first floor glove department from those beautiful wooden drawers, just below the escalators…at Strouss-Hirshberg’s Department Store.