Lost Cleveland: Seven Wonders of the Sixth City (New book)
Michael DeAloia, Cleveland's emeritus "Tech Czar," has authored
Lost Cleveland, a new book by the History Press, about seven of his favorite historic landmarks from the city's past. With the 75th anniversary of the Great Lakes Exposition -- one of the places he discusses -- coming up this summer, here's a great way to bone up on that amazing event.
Michael has been signing copies all around town and reports that the first printing is almost sold out, so rush out and get yourself a copy.
I wrote the foreword for this book, but neglected to negotiate a royalty split with Michael before it went best seller like this. :-)
Labels: book, Cleveland history, Cleveland Ohio, Michael DeAloia
Cleveland Disaster Expert John Stark Bellamy Returns
Press release received:Cleveland crime and disaster expert John Stark Bellamy II returns to town April 19-24 for a series of talks based on his new anthology, "Cleveland's Greatest Disasters!” (Gray & Co., Publishers).
Bellamy will share stories about the most shocking and gruesome events in Cleveland history, including the tragic Collinwood School Fire of 1908, in which 172 schoolchildren perished; the apocalyptic East Ohio Gas Co. explosion of 1944, which destroyed an entire east side neighborhood; and the grisly 1928 drama in which two workmen were buried alive in cement beneath Terminal Tower.
The author of five books about Cleveland crime and disaster and the former history specialist for the Cuyahoga County Library system, Bellamy retired to Vermont in 2004. This is the first time he has been back to Cleveland to give public talks since 2008.
Click here for a complete list of dates, times, and locations for Bellamy's talks in April: http://www.grayco.com/events/events1.shtml#Bellamy
All events are free and open to the public. For more information, call the venues listed or contact Gray & Co., Publishers; 1-800-708-2819.
Labels: book, Cleveland history, Cleveland OH, crime, Gray and Company Publishers, John Stark Bellamy
New Book: "Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart"
Announcement received.NEW BOOK CELEBRATES BYGONE ERA OF CLEVELAND NEWSPAPERSFifty-four veteran Cleveland reporters, editors and photographers swap stories about the life and times of the newspaper business in a new book:
Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart: Tales from the Last Glory Days of Cleveland Newspapers (hardcover / $24.95 / 256 pages).
The book, which was compiled from interviews conducted by
John H. Tidyman, provides an oral history of the period between 1950 and 1982. During that time, fierce competition between the “Cleveland Press” and the “Plain Dealer” made working for a daily paper an unusually interesting job. (The Press ceased operation on June 17, 1982, a date many people consider the sad end of an era.)
“It was a job unlike any other,” Tidyman said. “Reporters, photographers and editors were envied, threatened, beatified, fooled and thought to be the luckiest s.o.b.’s around.”
Contributors to the book are former staffers from the Plain Dealer and Cleveland Press, many of them familiar to readers from their bylines — Dick Feagler, Brent Larkin, Marge Alge, Don Bean, William Miller, Dan Coughlin, Dick Peery, George Condon, Helen Moise, Mike Roberts, Bob Dolgan and Bill Wynne, among others.
All of them share a common nostalgia for the bygone era when Cleveland had competing daily newspapers and newsrooms were filled with the sound of typewriters and the ring of the newswire bells.
The stories they tell range from funny to tragic and sometimes outrageous. For example:
-Jim Dudas (Press) once bribed a prisoner with a carton of cigarettes to refuse an interview with the rival Plain Dealer.
-Whitey Watzman (Plain Dealer) ventured onto a crime scene and stumbled upon half a dozen officers, guns drawn, waiting in the dark for the real criminal.
-Wally Guenther (Press) infiltrated and wrote about the Ku Klux Klan.
-William F. Miller (Plain Dealer) put on a hardhat and passed himself off as a Salvation Army worker to cover a Great Lakes ore boat fire.
The book groups stories thematically, including chapters on the police beat, sportswriting, the women’s department, drinking on the job, and hazardous assignments. Short anecdotes from different storytellers are interspersed so that the text reads like an informal conversation among longtime colleagues.
More samples and information can be found online at:
http://www.grayco.com/cleveland/books/10169/sampleChapter.htmlAbout the AuthorJohn Tidyman was ordered by his father to take a touch-typing class the summer before high school. Tidyman often cites that incident as the reason he became a writer. After graduating from Lakewood High School, he was drafted and fought in the Vietnam War. He returned a 19-year old “buck sergeant.” Before he joined the Cleveland Press as a reporter, Tidyman worked as a waiter, a warehouseman and an airfreight agent. He is the author of eight books and has also written for almost every area publication.
Price and AvailabilityGimme Rewrite, Sweetheart ($24.95 / hardcover / 256 pages) is available at Northeast Ohio bookstores, online from Amazon.com, and from the publisher’s Web site. For more information, call Gray & Company, Publishers at 1-800-915-3609, or visit their Web site:
www.grayco.com.
Labels: book, Cleveland history, Cleveland Ohio, journalism
New Book on Veterans Bridge Coming in Fall
In September the Cleveland State University Library will be publishing a major book on the Veterans Memorial Bridge (aka the Detroit-Superior Bridge), by bridge engineer William E. Beyer. Over 600 pages in length and packed with hundreds of historic photos of the bridge, including dramatic construction shots, this handsome hard-cover book will commemorate the bridge's recent 90th anniversary. Only 250 copies of the book will be printed, but thanks to support from the Sloane Family Fund and CSU's Watson Endowment Fund, the book will retail in the $20-25 range. This will be a great gift for someone who loves the bridge (who doesn't?), or Cleveland landmarks history in general. Direct inquiries to me at w.barrow@csuohio.edu.
Labels: book, Cleveland history, Cleveland Ohio, Detroit-Superior Bridge, landmarks, Veterans Memorial Bridge
