We probably had 15 percent of the second floor,” Mark Kessler told The State Journal-Register in 2018. “Eventually, we moved upstairs on the second level. Mark and Gary Kessler started selling used records on the balcony at the back of the store in the early 1980s. An outdoor sign still refers to that name, though the furniture was relegated to the basement in 1999. in 1910, and then run by his parents, Wilbur and Grace Kessler. The store was started by Kessler's maternal grandparents, Joe and Ida Katz, as Springfield Furniture Co. "This is much harder for me than anyone might imagine." "I talk to my old-time customers and find myself crying," he admitted last week. The building will go up for sale within the next couple of months, Kessler added. Most of the remains, Kessler said, will be liquidated after the closure, meaning items will go to eBay and other auction sites. Kessler said he will try to make the last day of business "as least sad of a thing as I can" by having Tom Irwin and other local musicians perform. If the sale had gone through, Kessler said, the store would have been closed already, but he didn't want loyal customers to be deprived of the chance to say goodbye. His widow, Kathy, owns half of the store. Mark Kessler died April 24, 2022, after a short illness. Kessler and his older brother, Mark, had planned for years to sell the store and retire. We had someone who was going to buy it and with two weeks left, they just stopped communicating with us and they were gone." "Very bittersweet," Kessler said, asked how he is feeling about the closing. Construction work at the Illinois Building further west in the 600 block of East Adams Street has hampered parking and accessibility to the store, adding to Kessler's misery. Kessler, 70, thought the store, featuring tens of thousands of music titles along with jewelry, stereo equipment, antique toys and a mélange of knickknacks, had a buyer earlier this year before a deal fell through. Gary Kessler, one of its owners, confirmed last week that the iconic downtown store, which has operated in some capacity in the family for 113 years and has become a destination place for record shoppers throughout the Midwest, would shutter for good April 29.Ī sale on items up to 50% off is ongoing now through the closing. Honored: Renowned law professor Tracey Meares inducted into Springfield High Hall of Fame "Every Saturday (of my college days) was spent here shopping," Alison Cox said, clutching vinyl records by the Beatles and Tom Petty. News of the downtown store's closing is what brought Cox and her 12-year-old daughter, Ryleigh, in on a recent Saturday afternoon. Alison Cox of Springfield admitted she hadn't been in Recycled Records in years.
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