Press
In Praise of “Lost Cleveland”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer: “This book showcases what a wonderful and unique city we have always been and how our diverse Rust Belt heritage and industrialized history is an important foundation for our identity today.”
The News Herald: “Centered on Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street, Doan’s Corners was named after an early settler in the city, Nathaniel Doan, and boasted jazz clubs and nightclubs, ballrooms and bowling alleys, as well as several apartment buildings. Important entertainment venues of that area in the town included Keith’s 105th Street Theater — a vaudeville house where a young Bob Hope worked on his act — and the Alhambra Theater, owned by well-known gangster Alex “Shondor” Birns.”
Ideastream: “Remember how great it smelled inside Hough Bakery? The excitement of passing under the arch of Euclid Beach Park? Catching a flick at the Memphis Drive-In? On The Sound of Ideas, we get nostalgic as we explore Cleveland’s past with The Plain Dealer’s Laura DeMarco, author of the new book, “Lost Cleveland.” Later, a contingent of civic leaders just returned from a week in Israel. We’ll gather some to discover what they learned.”
PBS, WVIZ: “Who remembers Luna park … The Record Rendezvous .. Hough Bakery … And Municipal Stadium?”
Cleveland Scene: “Organized chronologically, Lost Cleveland, a new coffee table book featuring photos of old Cleveland institutions that are no longer with us, includes photos from places such as Leo’s Casino, the Hippodrome, Hough Bakery, Cleveland Municipal Stadium and Memphis Drive-In. Plain Dealer reporter Laura DeMarco did the painstaking research and wrote the copy that accompanies the vintage photos.”
Freshwater Cleveland: “The book is DeMarco’s ode to her hometown, providing a chronological history of the city’s rise and fall from being the nation’s fifth largest city and industrial powerhouse to its modern resurgence.”
In Praise of “Cleveland Then and Now”
The Plain Dealer: “Plain Dealer arts and culture writer Laura DeMarco is quickly becoming Cleveland’s new pop historian du jour. It all began with her first book, “Lost Cleveland,” a look at local historical sites that had faded from view, victims to the whims of time and change.”
WKYC: “Changes to Cleveland highlighted in new book…”
WKYC: “Inside Cleveland’s hidden historic gems…”
WOIO Sunny Side up morning show guest, Nov. 5, 2018
Cool Cleveland: “Everyone has a personal history of Cleveland, which invariably leads to memories and questions about the past.”
Freshwater Cleveland: “After revisiting Cleveland’s past, DeMarco’s new book highlights the Cleveland that’s still standing…”
Cleveland Magazine: “Higbee’s Department Store was once a mecca for holiday shopping and a symbolic center for downtown Cleveland. Founded in 1860, the Public Square location, with 11 floors of designer clothes, gifts and accessories, is memorialized in A Christmas Story with its elaborate storefront holiday displays.”
WCPN, Ideastream: “Laura DeMarco, author of “Cleveland Then and Now” discusses the evolving landscape of Northeast Ohio, and how our architecture reveals our history. Join us.”
In Praise oF “Mark Twain’s America Then and Now”
WCPN, 90.3 FM, Ideastream: “Laura DeMarco discusses her latest book, “Mark Twain’s America: Then and Now.””
Mark Twain Review: “Can anyone honestly say they have stood for a moment at a historic site and not imagined the past coming alive? This blending of time and place, past with the present, may be a uniquely human strength, or perhaps a childish weakness. But it is human, and few of us could stand below the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and not hear the echo of Martin Luther King’s immortal aspiration, or walk in the pastoral greenery of Gettysburg and not think the quietude ironic, or stand in any Nazi death camp and not be stricken with anger and grief. ”
St. Louis Post Dispatch: Three sites in Missouri open “Mark Twain’s America”: Florida, Hannibal and St. Louis. They only make up about 20 pages of this book, but they are, of course, the important jumping-off point for the 19th-century writer Samuel Clemens, who would travel the world and become an international celebrity.
Cleveland Scene: “In her new book, Mark Twain’s America Then and Now, Plain Dealer reporter Laura DeMarco examines how American has changed since Twain’s time by showing what places he visited looked like when he visited them and comparing them to what they look like now. The book includes a number of references to Cleveland, notably the Cleveland Herald Building and Case Hall.”
TV appearances
Local host for Euronews Cleveland segment: Upbeat and Down to Earth: Cleveland, Ohio
A Halloween discussion of Cleveland’s most gruesome, unsolved crime, Oct 31, 2018
WKYC Lost Cleveland: Richman Bros. & League Park, Sept. 21, 2017