New Book Releases

The northern anchor of Detroit's greater downtown, New Center is a diverse and vibrant neighborhood that offers shopping, entertainment, and dining among landmark architecture, historic districts, and contemporary homes and businesses.

Shortly after General Motors built their headquarters three miles north of downtown, the Fisher Brothers conceived the idea of a ""new center"" and proceeded to construct the landmark Fisher and New Center Buildings. From this initial activity in the 1920s sprung a new commercial district, a new neighborhood, and a New Center for the City of Detroit. Detroit's New Center takes readers on a journey from New Center's origins as a planned business district to its current life as a thriving area where Detroiters live, work, and play.

Explore the fascinating history of Willoughby, Ohio with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it.

Located in northeast Ohio, Willoughby began as a community of mills and cabins clustered along the banks of the Chagrin River. The first settlers arrived before 1800 and were hardy New Englanders who brought their religious beliefs, their love of country, their respect for education, and their architecture to the wilderness.

By 1853, when the village was incorporated, they had established churches, homes, businesses, and schools, including a medical college. Before the century was over, the arrival of two rail lines and an electric streetcar company transformed the quiet little town into a bustling center of commerce and enterprise. Since then, Willoughby, known as the Courtesy City, has continued to grow and prosper while retaining the look and feel of an earlier era.

Historic homes still line its residential streets, while several blocks of the commercial district are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Inside are views of Rockford's bustling downtown, including rare glimpses of long-gone landmarks like the Grand Opera House and Orpheum Theater. Witness history in the making with Rockford's first recorded airplane flights in 1911 and experience U.S. Army doughboy life at Rockford's Camp Grant. Be there for Teddy Roosevelt's historic visits to Rockford, and marvel at the intrepid companies that turned Rockford into a national manufacturing power.

Detroit's Corktown documents and celebrates the history of Detroit's oldest neighborhood, detailing its history of diversity.

Detroit's Corktown celebrates the history of Detroit's oldest neighborhood. Many of their shotgun homes are still occupied, and many commercial buildings have served the community for decades. From Irish immigrants in the 1840s to urban pioneers of the 21st century, this community has beckoned to the restless of spirit, the adventurous, and those who have sought to escape poverty and oppression to make a new life in America. While the city of Detroit has undergone tremendous change over the years, Corktown has never forgotten the solid working-class roots established by brave pioneers in the mid-19th century. Today the neighborhood is the scene of increasing residential and commercial development and has attracted attention throughout the region. No longer exclusively Irish, the community has also been important historically to the large German, Maltese, and Mexican populations of Detroit. Today it is a diverse and proud community of African Americans, Hispanics, working-class people of various national origins, and a growing population of young urban pioneers. It is still the sentimental heart of the Irish American community of metropolitan Detroit, and the Irish Plaza on Sixth Street honors the city's Irish pioneers and their 600,000 descendents living in the region.

Discover the stories behind historic Columbus neighborhoods and their engaging landmarks.

The community centers that locals call home aren't just points of interest but places that have shaped history beyond their communities and even Ohio. This encyclopedia of Columbus neighborhoods gives voice to the rich heritage residing in the bell towers, parks and streetscapes of Franklinton, German Village, King-Lincoln, Olde Town East, Short North and the University District. Along with WOSU's award-winning Columbus Neighborhoods series, Tom Betti, Doreen Uhas Sauer and Ed Lentz curate the stories tracing the lines from your neighborhood to the Manhattan Project, the Underground Railroad, Abraham Lincoln and the Tuskegee Airmen.

The River City. Marietta, in Ohio was one of the earliest premanent settlements in the US and as the ""new frontier, building steamboats and home to riverboats, has a long and vibrant history.

Marietta, known as the ""River City,"" was the first permanent settlement of the Northwest Territory. In 1788, General Rufus Putnam and 48 pioneers founded this organized settlement at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, eventually leading it to become a major riverboat community with many steamboat-building yards. Marietta was a main thoroughfare for people migrating to the new frontier, including those seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad route. Marietta's accessibility from the rivers and both rail and road has made Marietta the hub of business, industry, education, and recreation in Southeastern Ohio for centuries. Today's downtown business and residential areas still reflect its long and rich history.

Decatur, Illinois has long had a proud tradition of workers and craftsmen who produced coal, water pumps, gloves, automobiles, clothing, corn meal, and many other products.

Though it is home to Caterpillar's second largest plant and serves as world headquarters for Archer Daniels Midland, a global processor of corn and soybeans, Decatur is much more than jobs and factories. If Illinois is the Heartland, then Decatur is the Heart of the Heartland. Decatur is the site of Abraham Lincoln's first Illinois residence, in 1830, and it is where he was nominated for the presidency on May 10, 1860. Decatur is also home to a symphony orchestra, homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a community college, and Millikin University.

Slumbering beneath a shroud of deep forest and deliberate secrecy, Bachelors Grove Cemetery still exerts a powerful pull on paranormal pilgrims and curiosity-seekers around the world.

Shielding the orphaned burial ground from ritual and idle vandalism has also buried the rich history of this magical place. Still, its eerie presence has dominated the folklore of the southwest side of Chicago for every generation since 1838. Brave the woods with Ursula Bielski to unearth decades of mysteries and myriad ghost stories, from the Magic House to the Madonna of Bachelor's Grove.

Cleveland storyteller Dan Ruminski discovered that the 6 acres under his home were originally part of a 1,400-acre grand estate known as the Circle W Farm.

The impressive estate was created by Walter White, founding brother of the White Motor Company. Drawn in by the fascinating history, Ruminski's investigation soon embraced the full legacy of Cleveland's industrial history and the indomitable characters who created the city's Gilded Age. John D. Rockefeller, Samuel Mather and more giants of industry built Cleveland's Millionaires' Row. Come peek inside the once-grand mansions these millionaires called home and hear the delightful stories that bring the past to life. Join Ruminski and Alan Dutka on a return to this section of Euclid Avenue, which wasn't merely the most stunning show of wealth in Cleveland but also in the entire country.

Explore the events and characters that make up the more unusual aspects of Cleveland's history. A must-read for fans of fantastic, peculiar, and nontraditional history.

Eliot Ness might come busting in and take all of you crooks to jail - or more likely he won't, even if you've been robbing banks all over Cleveland and bragging about it to the media, like self-proclaimed last of the big-time bank robbersEddie Watkins.

This isn't your Kevin Costner version of Eliot Ness, and this isn't your standard collection of Cleveland eccentrics. Join author Ted Schwarz on this romp celebrating bizarre misdeeds and noteworthy accomplishments of Clevelanders large and small. Learn of the burlesque star who created the striptease and the con woman who claimed to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter. Get to know present-day street musician Maurice Reedus Jr. and the remaining cast of loving souls, offbeat characters and one-of-a-kind Clevelanders.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealerput it in April 2009, Ted Schwarz may be the most prolific author you've never heard of.He's been freelancing full time for nearly forty years. During that time, he's written well over one hundred books and more than three thousand articles and short stories for publications throughout the world. His books have been translated into more than a half dozen languages, and several have been made into documentaries and/or television movies. He has appeared on over three hundred television and radio programs in the United States and Canada.