If you’re a Clevelander of a certain age – say, over 40 – you might remember a middle-aged man at the suburban malls around Northeast Ohio who hawked vintage Cleveland history photos for years. Bruce Young loved Cleveland history, and he loved selling interesting and hard-to-find images under the business name Photographs of Yesteryear.
By the time Bruce was selling Cleveland images, he had already retired from a long career as a classroom teacher. He sought opportunities to acquire a number of collections from retired news photographers and purchased other photo collections at estate sales so as to preserve them for posterity. When he passed in 2003, he bequeathed his collection of photographs to Cleveland State University, and today they are a part of the special collections of the Michael E. Schwartz Library at CSU.
Bruce was also a friend of Cleveland Landmarks Press and allowed the company to use his photographs to produce a companion set of books: Vintage Cleveland, Photographs of Yesteryear, and Vintage Cleveland II: More Photographs of Yesteryear.
The original Vintage Cleveland has sold out, but this month, we’re revisiting Vintage Cleveland II – a book originally published in 2012. Looking for a book that helps the reader picture what Cleveland used to look like until the 1990s? Vintage Cleveland II, a short, nostalgia-filled book, is perfect for capturing what you might have seen around town in decades past. Its 120 photos review an ever-changing downtown, the twists and turns of the Cuyahoga River, and the bridges which bind the city together.
It explores the city’s former grand hotels and favorite restaurants, its vanished movie theatres, and the supermarkets of the past. It flies over the city’s airports, and takes a nostalgic look at the Great Lakes Exposition that drew millions to the lakefront in 1936-1937. Finally, it captures some of Clevelanders’ favorite stores, from Burrows and Kresge’s, to Paul Newman’s family store (Newman-Stearns) and the May Company on Public Square. It is sure to revive fond memories of a past that seems to fade from the Cleveland scene with each passing year.
Check it out at clevelandlandmarkspress.com.
