Blighted Building in the Flats Razed

IRONWOOD, MI - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - An abandoned building in the flats was razed yesterday by Jake's Excavating. The building was located at 404 Silver Street, between Temperature Control Services and Pizza King Joe's, in Ironwood. On December 12, 1938, Emily C. Cox opened "The Modern Beauty Shop" on the ground floor of the building. According to an article featured in the Ironwood Daily Globe that day, "The shop was equipped with new, modern equipment." According to City Directories, there were apartments upstairs of the structure.

In the 1950's Ann Mizgala operated the Salon as demonstrated the in ad pictured to the left. The name was change to Ann's Beauty Studio. "It's New, Clean & Beautiful." According to available information, Ann's remained open into the '60's.

In recent years the building was either empty or was being used for storage. Jake's Excavating has been razing blight structures for the City throughout the summer.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this article was first posted, the Chronicle has received notice that some of the information we received was incorrect. Chris Ann Bressette sent us an email that states, "According to my mother, Joan Kostopolus, the building razed in the article, Blighted Building Razed in Flats, used to be part of an old grocery store that ran right up to the Pizza King Joe building. She said they tore part of it down years ago, and the building recently razed was the remainder of it. My grandmother, Ann Mizgala, (Ann's Beauty Studio) was located in the Temperature Control building. I'd have to check my records, but I'm almost positive Ann purchased the now Temperature Control building from Emily Cox. Lakkanen may have been the owners of the recently razed building, but it definitely was not Ann Mizgala's maiden name. It was Verbos."

"Anyway, I just thought I'd point out this correction to you."

Thank-you Chris, that's very interesting. Although it's good to see abandoned, blighted buildings being torn down, it's sad to lose their history. Thanks for setting the record straight.

If anyone has any other information they'd like to pass along... please send it to us.

Jim Albert, Editor

EDITOR'S NOTE: Today I received another email that pretty much clears the mystery up. According to a November 12, 2010 email from John Alexandroni, Sr., "The building razed in the article, 'Blighted Building Razed in Flats,' was the home of the 'Ace Cab & Ambulance Co.' It was owned & operated by Violet & John Colassaco from around 1959 into the mid 60's. Prior to that it was the Colassaco family's home for many years.. It had two apartments plus the taxi office, the ambulance garage was attached to the east side of the building."

Very cool! See... even when we get a story wrong... thanks to our readers... we eventually get it right! Thanks, John, for the information. I think the history of these buildings is fastinating. I'd like to create a few pages in the Chronicle that showed old and new photos with histories of all of the buildings in town. Thanks again.

Jim Albert, Editor