UPDATE: Rogol’s store will likely be sold by the end of the month.
The news — and this contributed photo of owner Theodore Rogol — prompted bittersweet memories from Valley Indy readers.
Visit our Facebook page to share your stories and memories about the shop and its 100-year history in Seymour.
The following is the original story posted Monday afternoon.
Pete Giovacchino has been hanging out at Rogol’s Shop on Main Street for the past 40 years.
Several mornings each week, Giovacchino meets up at Rogol’s with other old-timers in Seymour to drink coffee and talk politics, the stock market or Valley memories.
If all goes according to plan, those gatherings will end this month.
The family shop — a fixture in downtown Seymour for the past 100 years — will likely be sold by the end of June, according to Rogol family members.
Owner Theodore “Teddy” Rogol passed away at 89 years old in September 2007 and his three children have been trying to sell the Main Street building ever since.
Now, after two and a half years, the family has an interested, local, buyer.
Brian Rogol, Teddy Rogol’s son and executor of his estate, declined to say who that buyer was until the sale is complete.
The family decided to sell when Teddy Rogol passed away because each of his three children had careers far away from the Valley and because the business atmosphere for a small clothing store like Rogol’s has disappeared over the years.
“It’s sad,” said Debbie Krasa, Rogol’s daughter. “It’s the end of an era.”
The Era
That era is the time when vibrant factory towns like Seymour supported small, family owned shops like Rogol’s.
The workers from the local factory frequented the shops in downtown Seymour (and other factory towns, like Ansonia) during lunch breaks and after work. They shopped for everything from food to clothing and shoes.
But as the Valley changed from blue-collar to bedroom community, the shops struggled and often closed.
“When you look at all those stores that had been around in downtown Seymour when I was in junior high school and high school, they’re all gone now,” said Brian Rogol. “This is our hundredth year. Maybe we’re the last ones.”
Even as the Valley — and America — changed, Rogol’s stayed the same, Krasa said.
“Walking into Rogol’s was like walking into a time warp,” Krasa said. “A lot of the furnishing and the way the store looked was a real throwback.”
Rogol’s
Teddy Rogol’s father, Mayer, opened the shop on Bank Street in Seymour in 1910.
The shop sold men’s clothing and shoes.
Teddy Rogol was born in an apartment above the old shop, Krasa said. He worked there his whole life, helping out his father as a child, and later taking over the shop. Rogol worked up until the week he died, Brian Rogol said.
In 1923, the family purchased the property where the store now sits, and built the building that still stands today.
“Seymour is the only town my father has ever lived in,” Brian Rogol said. “And the store is the only job he ever had. Even in a place like the Valley, that’s probably relatively unusual.”
Today
Since Rogol’s death, family friend Joe Maxner has been watching the shop.
Maxner said during that time he has sold off the remaining inventory — old pairs of jeans, 1950s-style ties, boxes and boxes of work shoes.
And the morning coffee gatherings with old friends have continued.
“We had good times here on Main Street and bad times,” Giovacchino said, referring to the drop in business over the years.
At the peak, the meetings included Rogol and six or seven other guys. These days, there are about four people that regularly hang out at the store.
“His store was the last of that kind of store, where people would go in and hang out and talk about whatever,” Krasa said. “It was just a place where people go.”
Krasa said the store also was a repository of local knowledge.
People often wandered in asking for train and bus times, which Teddy Rogol had handy. But you could also get a slice of history walking into the store.
Rogol kept old maps and old photographs of Seymour, and would bring them out to help illustrate stories he was telling about the Valley.
The group of friends sitting around the shop floor often joined in on the stories — adding details about which stores got washed away during the flood of 1955, who owned which buildings along Main Street.
“Any information you wanted about the Valley, you could walk into Rogol’s and pretty much somebody there could tell you,” Krasa said
Now, the shelves are almost empty, and a ‘For Sale’ sign hangs crooked in the front window.
Boxes litter the ground around broken chairs, waiting for family members to collect mementos before the sale is finalized.
Maxner said the old men will find another place to meet up — perhaps the basement of a Main Street building Giovacchino owns.
