• Trip to Montgomery commemorates Cleveland man murdered in 1911 over a handful of cherries

    by Randy Cunningham    (Plain Press December 2025) The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a project of the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Alabama is a complex of sites dedicated to commemorating the black experience in America from slavery and segregation, up to today’s New Jim Crow of mass incarceration. I think it is…


  • Tamir Rice Butterfly Memorial designated as Cleveland Landmark

       (Plain Press November 2025) At its October 20th meeting, Cleveland City Council approved designating the Tamir Rice Butterfly Memorial as a Cleveland Landmark (Ord. No. 1084-2025), sponsored by Councilmember Jenny Spencer.


  • Documentary about John F. Kennedy to air on Mondays in November

       (Plain Press November 2025) On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Over the years, there have been numerous books, documentaries and movies that were made putting forward different theories about who was behind it. One of the 1st major motion pictures about the JFK assassination that reached the theaters…


  • Councilman Kris Harsh urged to honor promise to delay demolition of Pearl and Memphis corner until funding for proposed project is secured

    by Lynette Filips    (Plain Press November 2025) Longtime Greater Clevelanders will no doubt remember the years shortly before and after 1970 when the lights were permanently off at Playhouse Square. The once-glorious theaters were slated for demolition because downtown Cleveland was not the entertainment epicenter of the region that it once had been. But…


  • News from Old Brooklyn and update on status of Memphis and Pearl project

    PHOTO BY CHUCK HOVEN Monday, September 22, 2025, Brookmere Cemetery, 3645 Broadview Road: Entrance to the City of Cleveland’s Brookmere Cemetery. by Lynette Filips      (Plain Press October 2025) Another month has passed and once again there are new developments in the Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation’s (OBCDC’s) Memphis Pearl project. Interestingly, I was recently…


  • Effort to preserve Old Brooklyn’s history continues

    by Lynette Fillips    (Plain Press September 2025) Over a year and a half ago when I started writing these articles for the Plain Press, I visited the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn’s (HSOB’s) museum, 3430 Memphis Ave., to check some historical information in their files. While there I met a thirty-something year old man…


  • Documentary recounts history of the Cleveland Airshow

       (Plain Press August 2025) The “Cleveland Airshow” initially began back in 1929. It was held at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport which is just west of Parma. The main event was the different divisions of plane races that took place over the surrounding neighborhoods during the Labor Day Weekend. Amateurs and professional pilots would fly…


  • Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits granted to two buildings in Old Brooklyn Historic District

    IMAGE COURTESY OF STEPHANIE RYBERG-WEBSTER Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies at Cleveland State University’s Levin School of Urban Affairs, is the author of Preserving the Vanishing City:  Historic Preservation Amid Urban Decline In Cleveland, Ohio.  She was one of three persons speaking about the topic of Preservation Advocacy at a…


  • TRUTH IS: WE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD PRO SPORTS

    Truth is: We can no longer afford pro sports by Roldo Bartimole    If the Browns domed stadium in Brook Park tiff tells anything it says loudly that Cleveland and Cuyahoga County taxpayers can no longer afford the rapacious desires of billionaire sports owners.    We simply cannot pay their tab any longer.    It…


  • Fact checking corrects misinformation about history of Pearl & Memphis corner

    PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF OLD BROOKLYN German United Evangelical Church of Brighton, Ohio, built in 1853 and replaced in 1904.  This little frame church faced Columbus Rd. (today’s Pearl Rd.) at the northwest corner of Mill St. (today’s Memphis Ave.) PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF OLD BROOKLYN St. Luke’s Evangelical…